I missed him so much I would sometimes turn to tell him something before I forgot he was gone. In spite of all that, and all the emotion boiling around inside me, all I could think of to say was: “You’re blue.

It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.

You're the last Olympian,' I said. 'And the most important.' And why is that, Percy Jackson?' Because Hope survives best at the hearth,' I said.

Some pain shouldn’t be wished away so easily. It has to be dealt with, even embraced.

I think anytime you're writing to the middle grades, you're writing to young readers who are trapped in a number of ways between two worlds: between childhood and adulthood, between their friends and their parents.

Otrera stayed dead the second time," Kinzie said, batting her eyes. "We have to thank you for that. If you ever need a new girlfriend...well, I think you'd look great in an iron collar and an orange jumpsuit." Percy couldn't tell if she was kidding or not. He politely thanked her and changed seats.

Leo took out a pen and autographed the arm of one of the nymphs. “Narcissus is a loser! He’s so weak, he can’t bench-press a Kleenex. He’s so lame, when you look up lame on Wikipedia, it’s got a picture of Narcissus—only the picture’s so ugly, no one ever checks it out.