A fashion plate, a rock star in his own mind, Megamind is more showman than deadly menace.

Grief is nature’s most powerful aphrodisiac.

Whenever someone calls me ugly I get super sad and hug them, because I know how tough life is for the visually impaired.

I think a lot of the instincts you have doing comedy are really the same for doing drama, in that it’s essentially about listening. The way I approach comedy, is you have to commit to everything as if it’s a dramatic role, meaning you play it straight.

I have the physique a lot of people dream about having. It’s my obligation to share it with the world.

I left home to go to college, and then I moved back home. I moved back for three years from 21 to 24.

Aren’t we all striving to be overpaid for what we do?

One of my first memories of being a kid was, ‘I want to have a real job when I grow up.’ And to me that meant you wear a suit and a hat and carry a briefcase and go to your job.

I think with the success of, like, every summer there has been a couple R-rated comedies that have done so well; I think it is so nice to see that people are turning out to see these movies, and it doesn’t seem to be as big a stigma with the studios anymore.

Before you marry a person, you should first make them use a computer with slow Internet to see who they really are.

There’s a benefit to losing, you get to learn from your mistakes.

Facebook is like jail, you sit around and waste time, you write on walls and you get poked by people you don’t know

I’m a bit of a gourmet chef. I love cooking – mostly Thai food.

Personal philosophy: Clothing optional

I guess destiny isn’t the path chosen for us, but the path we chose for ourselves.

If no-one comes from the future to stop doing it, then how bad of a decision can it really be?

What’s the point of being bad when there’s nothing good to stop you?

I’ve got no dark secrets, I wasn’t beaten up, my parents were kind to me and there was a low crime rate where we lived. Maybe that’s where the comedy comes from, as some sort of reaction to the safe, boring suburbs.

Alcohol is like Photoshop for real life

I’ve never been a conceited person or cocky, never felt boastful, but I always had a sense of self-worth; I always had a real sense of myself.

I think my new iPhone 5S is broken. I pressed the home button and I’m still at work

I’ve always had, when I needed it, an extreme amount of focus that I could put into something. That has served me well.

The funny guy doesn’t get the girl until later in life. High school, college, everyone still wants the brooding, dangerous guy you shouldn’t have.

I put my pants on just like the rest of you – one leg at a time. Except, once my pants are on, I make gold records.

No matter how much you screw up your life, you can fix it.

Anyone who does anything creative is always gonna want to change.

We all know the moon isn’t made out of green cheese…but if it was made out of barbeque spare ribs would you eat it?

‘Elf’ has become this big holiday movie, and I remember running around the streets of New York in tights saying, ‘This could be the last movie I ever make,’ and I could never have predicted that it’d become such a popular film.

Enjoy the little fun things – like taking your kids to school – before they’re all grown up.

I was a strange kid in that, while most kids hate school and want to turn 18 or 21, I loved high school.

Members of the Senate and House, if they want to send troops into war, should be forced to send a family member. That would really make everyone stop and go, ‘Ohhh-kaaay.’

I speak as much Spanish as anyone who has grown up in Southern California or Texas or Arizona. I had my three years of high-school Spanish and a couple of semesters in college.

I look good. I mean, really good. Hey everyone! Come and see how good I look!

In every circle of friends there’s always that one person everyone secretly hates. Don’t have one? Then it’s probably you.

I often don’t think a lot about the ramifications of anything I do.

It’s the fastest who get paid and it’s the fastest who get laid.

I left ‘Saturday Night Live’ without a film to go to, and I’d filmed ‘Old School’ while I was in my last season of the show, and that hadn’t come out yet. I was a free agent, in a way, but I knew it was time to leave the show and test the water.

I was never a class clown or anything like that, but I do remember being in the first grade and my teacher, Mr. Chad, told the class one day that we were going to do some exercises. He meant math exercises, but I stood up and started doing jumping jacks. To this day, I don’t know what possessed me to do that, but all my friends cracked up.

I did plenty of jobs that I hated. I was a bank teller and terrible at it. I parked cars, a valet. I answered phones. I somehow avoided being a waiter. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep the order straight. I’m not much of a multi-tasker.

Saturday Night Live is such a comedy boot camp in a way, because you get to work with so many different people who come in to host the show and you get thrown into so many situations and learn how to think on your feet, so filmmaking actually feels slow, in a good way.

I think anyone who has, you know, is in any sort of artistic pursuit, kind of goes up and down with the way they feel about their work. And I, for the most part, am pretty happy person. But, yeah. I go through definite periods of time where I’m not funny. I’m not good. I’m – I don’t feel original.

Why not work with your friends? It’s working with people you know, and you share the same sensibility.

I always find it actually funny that the analysis is that the characters I play in comedies are the manchild, the adolescent, characters that refuse to grow up. And yet, if you look back in the history of comedy all the way back to the Marx brothers, that’s a big part of comedy.

I always just forced myself to do crazy things in public. In college I would push an overhead projector across campus with my pants just low enough to show my butt. Then my friend would incite the crowd to be like, ‘Look at that idiot!’ That’s how I got over being shy.

I guess ultimately a lot of comedians just wanna be taken seriously.

When I first started doing sketch comedy, I promised myself that if I were ever to have any success in this business, I wouldn’t hold back. Why get there and play it safe?

I hate when new parents ask who the baby looks like. It was born 15 minutes ago, it looks like a potato

I’ve always wanted to sail around the world in a handmade boat, and I built a boat.

Inappropriate behavior makes me laugh.

Alan turing, however, cared nothing for the opinion of society, and therefore was ahead of his time in laying bare the role of the state.

Programming is a skill best acquired by practice and example rather than from books.

Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two facilities, which we may call intuition and ingenuity.

Pidän ihmistä vaaleanpunaisena aistidatan kokoelmana.

No, I’m not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I’m after is just a mediocre brain, something like the President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.

What if there was some kind of machine capable of working out the entscheidnugsproblem? this was the germ of the idea that eventually became a computer, but no such thing existed at the time.

His was the other road to freedom, that of dedication to his craft.

Turing believes machines think. Turing lies with men. Therefore machines cannot think.

We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely intellectual fields.

But whatever these were, it was clear that here was part of alan that was so; that part of his reality was shaped that way.

These disturbing phenomena [Extra Sensory Perception] seem to deny all our scientific ideas. How we should like to discredit them! Unfortunately the statistical evidence, at least for telepathy, is overwhelming.

We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.

For alan turing did not think of himself as placed in a superior category by virtue of his brains, and only insisted upon playing what happened to be his own special part.

O corpo fornece alguma coisa para o espírito cuidar e usar.

Finding such a person makes everyone else appear so ordinary…and if anything happens to him, you’ve got nothing left but to return to the ordinary world, and a kind of isolation that never existed before.

On the other hand, he did make a big step towards the practical creation of a turing machine by proposing that the binary system should be used, once again based on the kind of punchcards.

The original question, ‘can machines think?’ I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion.

A very large part of space-time must be investigated, if reliable results are to be obtained.

No, I’m not interested in developing a powerful brain.

Machines can never think as humans do but just because something thinks differently from you, does it mean it’s not thinking?

It is possible to invent a single machine which can be used to compute any computable sequence.

A man provided with paper, pencil, and rubber, and subject to strict discipline, is in effect a universal machine.

Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.

The Exclusion Principle is laid down purely for the benefit of the electrons themselves, who might be corrupted (and become dragons or demons) if allowed to associate too freely.

I have had a dream indicating rather clearly that I am on the way to being hetero, though I don’t accept it with much enthusiasm either awake or in the dreams.

[…] ritardo ce ne sarà per forza, a causa di intoppi praticamente inevitabili, perché fino a un certo punto è meglio lasciare che ci siano intoppi piuttosto che spendere tempo sul progetto per essere sicuri che non ce ne siano (chissà quanti anni occorrerebbero per questa strada).

I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine… Gentle yet courageous, possessed, has a cultivated as well as a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own to approve or amend my plans.’ mary shelley, frankenstein, 1819.

Turing had important things to say on all of these, and he is probably best known for his wartime code-cracking, but he ought perhaps to be remembered more for his pioneering contribution to the very beginning of information technology.

I’m afraid that the following syllogism may be used by some in the future.

turing believes machines think
turing lies with men
therefore machines do not think

yours in distress,

alan.

He developed a particularly annoying way of ignoring the teaching during the term and then coming top in the examination.

Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine.

One day ladies will take their computers for walks in the park and tell each other, “My little computer said such a funny thing this morning”.

The historian hugh trevor roper, who visited often, described the atmosphere as ‘friendly informality verging on apparent anarchy’. One military policeman famously mistook bletchley for a military asylum. Turing.

Turing’s report left these questions hanging, but he did suggest a forerunner of what would eventually become the turing test: if you played chess against a learning machine, would you know if it was a human being or a computer?.

Natural wonders every child should know by edwin tenney brewster.

The idea behind digital computers may be explained by saying that these machines are intended to carry out any operations which could be done by a human computer.

Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.

Sometimes it’s the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine.

Do you know why people like violence? it is because it feels good. Humans find violence deeply satisfying. But remove the satisfaction, and the act becomes hollow.

Hilbert had written of galileo that in his recantation ‘he was not an idiot. Only an idiot could believe that scientific truth needs martyrdom – that may be necessary in religion, but scientific results prove themselves in time.’ but this was not a trial of scientific truth.

I want a permanent relationship, and I might feel inclined to reject anything which of its nature could not be permanent.

Think of it. A digital computer. Electrical brain.

He called the scientific subjects ‘low cunning’, and would sniff and say, ‘this room smells of mathematics! go out and fetch a disinfectant spray!.

David hilbert, the towering mathematical intellect of the previous thirty years, had put it thus:9 ‘mathematics knows no races … for mathematics, the whole cultural world is a single country’.

Instruction tables will have to be made up by mathematicians with computing experience and perhaps a certain puzzle-solving ability. There need be no real danger of it ever becoming a drudge, for any processes that are quite mechanical may be turned over to the machine itself.

Up to a point, it is better to just let the snags [bugs] be there than to spend such time in design that there are none.

All cretans are liars, as a cretan poet once told me.

Perhaps this was the most surprising thing about alan turing. Despite all he had done in the war, and all the struggles with stupidity, he still did not think of intellectuals or scientists as forming a superior class.

We are not interested in the fact that the brain has the consistency of cold porridge.

I’m afraid that the following syllogism may be used by some in the future. Turing believes machines think Turing lies with men Therefore machines do not think Yours in distress, Alan

Codes are a puzzle. A game, just like any other game.

He was one of those many people without a natural sense of left and right, and he made a little red spot on his left thumb, which he called ‘the knowing spot.

Can thinking and feeling emerge from patterns of activity in different sorts of substrate – organic, electronic, or otherwise?.

Out a calculation or apply an algorithm. Next.

For him, breaking the enigma was much easier than the problem of dealing with other people, especially with those holding power.

When we want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane first… Of course, to observe is not its real duty, we already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed…Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious.

But the campaigners wanted more than just an apology; they wanted a proper pardon. The government refused on the grounds that it would set a precedent, even though pardons had recently been given to 18 former terrorists under the northern ireland agreement.

I have such a stressful job that the only way I can get it out of my mind is by running hard.

Was I God? No. Because God didn’t win the war. We did.

I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted.

Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.

Instead of trying to produce a programme to simulate the adult mind, why not rather try to produce one which simulates the child’s? If this were then subjected to an appropriate course of education one would obtain the adult brain.

Have you ever won a war, Turing?I have.Do you know how it’s done?Order, discipline, chain of command. You’re not at university any longer. You are a very small cog in a very large system. And you will do as your commanding officer instructs.

Infine vorrei avanzare qualche congettura sulle ripercussioni che le macchine calcolatrici elettroniche digitali avranno sulla matematica. Ho già accennato al fatto che l’ace svolgerà il lavoro di circa diecimila calcolatori umani; c’è da aspettarsi dunque che il calcolo manuale su larga scala scomparirà.

Those who can imagine anything, can create the impossible.

My little computer said such a funny thing this morning.

In 1950 he was hardly likely to be on trial for heresy. But he certainly felt himself up against an irrational, superstitious barrier, and his predisposition was to defy.

It seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers… they would be able to converse with each other to sharpen their wits. At some stage therefore, we should have to expect the machines to take control.

Are you paying attention?

A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human.

I like solving problems, Commander. And Enigma is the most difficult problem in the world.

In short, can thinking and feeling emerge from patterns of activity in different sorts of substrate – organic, electronic, or otherwise?.

To pass the turing test the computer would have to do more than imitate. It would have to be a learning entity.

Is there intelligence without life? is there mind without communication? is there language without living? is there thought without experience?.

All this was wasted on alan, whose set work was hamlet. For a brief moment he pleased his father by saying that at least there was one line he liked. The pleasure was dissipated when alan explained it was the last line: ‘exeunt, bearing off the bodies….

For him there had to be a reason for everything; it had to make sense – and to make one sense, not two.

Unless in communicating with it one says exactly what one means, trouble is bound to result.

If a machine is expected to be infallible, it cannot also be intelligent.

He made a more explicit defence of his tea-mug (again irreplaceable, in war-time conditions) by attaching it with a combination lock to a hut 8 radiator pipe. But it was picked, to tease him.

I know it’s not ordinary. But who ever loved ordinary?

Mathematical reasoning may be regarded.

The point of what einstein had done did not lie in this or that experiment. It lay, as alan saw, in the ability to doubt, to take ideas seriously, and to follow them to a logical if upsetting conclusion.

Since 1941, according to his biographer andrew hodges, turing had been watching his proto-computers and decided that originality and intuition were processes that could be computed.

317 is a prime, not because we think so, or because our minds are shaped in one way rather than another, but because it is so, because mathematical reality is built that way.

The line between the ‘mechanical’ and the ‘intelligent’ was very, very slightly blurred.

The only thing I learnt in high school is that people are very violent and territorial.

So people keep asking me what this badge is for… this badge makes me the sheriff, the sheriff of Emo town, so get your straight irons and eyeliner ready!

Would you destroy something perfect in order to make it beautiful?.

The best thing about wearing black is that you can hide pretty easily, unless you’re in like Hawaii, then you can’t hide.

It’s okay to be messed up, because there are five other dudes who are just as messed up as you.

Sometimes you have to kind of die inside in order to rise from your own ashes and believe in yourself and love yourself and become a new person.

It’s for the hamster that I’m gonna buy! This is so perfect! (after opening a hamster wheel at Christmas)

Life is very, very short, and you can choose to live it how you want. You can choose to dumb yourself down and not express yourself just so you can fit in, just so people won’t dislike you.

I am not afraid to keep on living. I am not afraid to walk this world alone. Honey if you stay you’ll be forgiven, nothing you can say will set me going home.

Anything can be art. Anything can be self-expression . Now you take the weapon and run with it.

I’ve always seen My Chemical Romance as the band that would have represented who me and my friends were in high school, and the band that we didn’t have to represent us – the kids that wore black – back then.

I know something you don’t….and that is…. I’m not wearing any underwear! we’re gonna get sexy for a minute!.

There’s not a lot of art forms where you can control your presentation and your ideas.

NOTHING is worth hurting yourself over. NOTHING is worth taking your life over, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!

Be yourself, don’t take anything from anyone, and never let them take you alive.

As long as somebody is guaranteed a certain number of sales you know you’re gonna keep seeing these vanity projects. I mean they have a place, they serve a function they can bring people into comics.

If you’re ever in a dark place, don’t resort to violence. Talk to someone; whether it be a therapist, teacher, parent, or just someone you can trust. We all have our dark places and it’s important that you get help.

I have a nihilistic attitude so it’s like, the new gay… it’s popular.

Let me tell you how the story ends, where the good guys die and the bad guys win. It doesn’t matter how many friend you make, but the graffite they write on your grave.

I believe in ghosts because I had a paranormal expierience once that was very personal. Though, every fiber in my being tries to convince me they don’t exist.

It’s important to keep up momentum, when I’m home alone I get stagnant, I go crazy and have to see my therapist. Being on the road keeps me busy. I’m okay when I’m busy.

To me, the coolest, shiniest, sexiest, darkest, scariest thing you can be is pop.

I was this weird loner kid who got drunk by himself all the time.

Heroes are ordinary people who make themselves extraordinary.

If you ever see shitty *ss rock dudes in shitty *ss rock bands asking you to show them your tist for backstage passes, I want you to spit right in their f*cking faces and yell ‘f*ck you!.

What I like about The Sims is that I don’t have a normal life at all, so I play this game where these people have these really boring, mundane lives. It’s fun.

So many people treat you like you’re a kid so you might as well act like one and throw your television out of the hotel window.

So how was Christmas for you guys? Did you all get lots of nice black t-shirts?

Look at me, with my pretty bracelet and tiara… I’m a f****n’ princess!

Life is very, very short, and you can choose to live it how you want.

One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching

Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.

When you are kissing a guy with a beard, it’s different.

Like, you should never want to hurt yourself. You should love yourself.

It’s okay to love something a little too much,as long as it’s real to you.

I feel like theres so many people out there who have the kids in the palm of their hand, listening but there are so few people saying something

All your quirks and all your problems – even your depressions and your failures – that’s what makes you you.

A lot of kids get disappointed. They expect me to be, like, ‘Bwaah.’ ‘If I spend a minute with them, they end up saying, ‘Wow, you’re a nice, normal guy.’ They hate it when they catch me out of my makeup.

When youre touring and the minute you tell someone that youre from Jersey its the equivalent of telling them you just got out of jail.

In those perfect moments you find beauty you never knew existed. You find yourself and you friends all over again, you find something to fight for, something to love. Something to show the world.

I was more addicted to self destruction then to the drugs themselves … Something very romantic about it.

I feel like my mission is to be honest with myself. My mission is to share my truth – share, not give. I think that’s what an artist is supposed to do: I think they share.

If you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see, you can find out first hand what it’s like to be me.

You get caught up in a cycle at some point, so I broke the cycle and decided; I’m going to really write a lot of books, because I need to get in touch with that part of myself in order to make more music.

It’d be cool to be a vampire. Vampires are the best beast you can ever be. Call me egotistical, but I love the whole idea of immortality.

I got sunburnt which is obviously a drag for me because in theory the sun is supposed to kill me.

Don’t ever let the media tell you what your body is supposed look like. You’re beautiful the way you are. Stay beautiful, keep it ugly.

It is often my nature to be abstract, hidden in plain sight, or nowhere at all.

It reminded me of a meat grinder. From when I was a kid. Going to school it felt like you were in a meat grinder. It chews you up and pours out this mess that can’t function

There’s something very romantic about self-destruction and sabotaging your life, and taking a hammer to it.

I know something you don’t….and that is…. I’M NOT WEARING ANY UNDERWEAR! We’re gonna get sexy for a minute!

I am living proof that no matter how bad life gets, it gets better.

My parents didn’t have records, they didn’t have radios, and they didn’t listen to music. My grandmother was my main connection to art and music. She could play piano very well, and she had perfect pitch.

no matter how ugly the world gets or how stupid it shows me it is, I always have faith

People have evolved into something selfish, greedy and intolerant. People are unaccepting, because of religion, race, gender, sexual orientation… I’ve seen it in punk clubs, and I’ve seen it in the world.

No matter what anyone says, dont take their F**king Bulls**t. Coz you’re better then them, faster than them and god damn it, YOU’RE MUCH BETTER LOOKING!!

None. I think we should send a country some cupcakes. You think some cupcakes would cheer up North Korea? Kill ’em with deliciousness.

My favorite band at the moment is the Dresden Dolls, they’re from Boston. It’s a guy and a girl. She plays piano and he plays the drums and she also sings. You can find them on the web they’re incredible.

I had no direction. I thought, ‘I need to make a difference in my life,’ and music was my answer.

All we ever wanna do is inspire somebody to be who they wanna be and to give them a little bit of hope.

You can’t be two people in your brain, one rock dude and a dad – there’s something in the middle of them, and that’s really what you are and that’s going to make you the best dad – not when you try to be one or the other.

Can I be your only hope? Because your the only hope for me.

My Chemical Romance is done. But it can never die. It is alive in me, in the guys, and it is alive inside all of you. I always knew that, and I think you did too. Because it is not a band- it is an idea.

Hey girls, you’re beautiful. Whether you’re a size 32 or a size 18. As long as you’re a good person. As long as you respect others and yourself. Don’t listen to those fashion magazines. Hey girls, you’re beautiful

People don’t know if i’m gay, straight or an alien from outer space.. its funny

Rock’n’roll is not red carpets and MySpace friends, rock’n’roll is dangerous and should piss people off

Suicide is a serious thing. And if you know anyone who is suicidal, you need to get them help. No one should be in pain. Everyone should love themselves.

I pity you all… Most of you will die—scratch that—ALL of you.

We’ve always been fighters. There will always be something to fight against. So we’ll always fight, underdogs or not. If you put a wall in front of us, we don’t look to go round it. We just bust straight through.

Don’t let anyone tell you you’re not good enough. You’re good enough, you are too good. Love your family with all your heart and listen to it.

There was a moment in my life when I really wanted to kill myself. And there was one other moment when I was close to that. But even in my most jaded times, I had some hope.

Every big adventure should feel like your last. Every attempt should feel like a final charge up the hill. Tomorrow doesn’t exist.

This sh*t is easy peasy, pumpkin peasy, pumpkin pie, muthaf*cka!.

The world is gonna try to clean you up, what the f**k you gonna do about it? You’re gonna say, “I wanna stay ugly”.

Suicide is a serious thing. And if you know anyone who is suicidal, you need to get them help. No one should be in pain. Everyone should love themselves. Like I love you all.

As free and crazy as we want to be, and how much we want to make the world a canvas, there’s also a part of us that doesn’t want to make any mark.

No matter what anyone says, dont take their f**king bulls**t. Coz you’re better then them, faster than them and god damn it, you’re much better looking!!.

Did Superman really want to save the world, or did he just feel like he had to? Would he much rather be a farmer? Maybe. Would he much rather be hanging out with his dad and his mom and his dog? Probably.

There are really so many people trying to get control over you on a daily basis and steal your soul in some way, take a part of you…

Oh how wrong we were to think immortality meant never dying

Are you on our side…and want to be different, or are you on that side and want to throw a football at my head!?

As soon as I go into a Starbucks I take off my sunglasses. I want to be recognised and I want free coffee.

I see you lying next to me, with words I thought i’d never speak, awake and unafraid, asleep or dead?

I’m a big fan of domino masks, like Zorro, or Robin. You could put a domino mask on anything, and it becomes a superhero. You put a domino mask on a milkman, and he becomes, like, Super Milkman.

The Devil got landed with a shitty job, he has to deal with assholes everyday, he’s probably bored as hell.

If you want to dress up like a giraffe, and go to school like that, and that makes you happy then do it!.

That’s what makes me insufferable to be around, is that most of my life I have assumed that everyone wants to see me perform and do things all the time.

You know what? i’m an artist. I’m an artist and i’m gonna make art, arty art art!.

Being called weird is like being called limited edition, meaning you’re something people don’t see that often.

Life is always about being true to who you are or what you believe in.

Rock stars aren’t crapped out of the sky.

We know that listening to Black Veil Brides, wearing Black Veil Bride shirts, or being in Black Veil Brides isn’t always the most popular thing in the world.

How do we make a record that’s true to the vibe of the band but still maintain the pace of moving forward and doing something fresh?

I’m writing songs with the hope someone can get behind my feeling.

When people hurt you over and over, think of them like sandpaper. They may scratch and hurt you a bit, but in the end you end up polished and they end up useless.

Aside from comic book heroes, the only real life heroes I had were musicians.

Reverse petting zoo. You pet the animals, and they pet you back.

Find something that is a happy, healthy alternative to hurting yourself, as opposed to taking a razor blade to yourself because at the end of the day, you’re only hurting the most important person in the world and that’s you. And you don’t want to hurt that person.

You can’t save the world…save YOUR heart. Be a catalyst & create a life where you are powerful. Rebel. Be happy & allow others happiness.

I can shake weight from any angle.

To be honest, I’ve always been really interested in the role of the host, whether it’s our kind of Billy Crystal-style traditional awards show host or when you have someone like Louis C.K. or a more edgy stand-up comedian do their take on a hosting role.

Where you are right now blast some music and forget.

Be who you want to be and not care about what others think.

We”d like to be welcomed with open arms and open legs

Love is a power greater than death, just like the songs and stories told.

You don’t fall in love with a gender, you fall in love with a person.

Pages of revelation lie open in your empty eyes of blue

Please remember, that even in your darkest moments, you still have the choice to focus your energy on the positive and create a better life.

Finally, please remember this. If you EVER need something that you can stand behind, something to help you to take on and deflect all of the hatred of this often cruel world, you will ALWAYS have Black Veil Brides.

Me personally, I side more with punk rock bands. I grew up with The Misfits, The Dead Boys, The Damned, Dropkick Murphys, and early AFI. That was the stuff that really got me into music. Song writing wise, bands like Alkaline Trio were very important to me for beginning to write songs.

Always be yourself, unless you can be Batman, always be Batman.

Like birds whose wings are broken, you live without direction!

As we grow up we learn that even the person that wasnt supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it gets harder every time. You’ll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You’ll fight with your best friend. You’ll blame a new love for things an old one did. You’ll cry because time is passing too fast, and youll eventually lose someone you love, so take many pictures, laugh too much and love like you’ve never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is one minute of happiness you’ll never get back.

You try so hard to make something that’s fun and exciting, then all anyone wants to talk about is how no-one likes you. It gets very grinding. I had to let the chip I have on my shoulder about that go.

There is nothing more, I guess, cannibalistic than the metal or the hard rock scene, it seems.

I am a clinical zombie.

Stand up for what you believe in, even if it means standing alone….

I was homeless for almost a year and a half, just living in my car or bouncing around peoples’ houses, going to 7-Eleven at the end of the day and asking them for the taquitos that they were going to throw out because I hadn’t eaten in two days.

Live your life, listen to your music way to loud, be crazy and as different as you want to be and always remember your not alone

Let love be your perfect weapon.

We’re not trying to shock people with our image.

I had a goal, I had a dream… and at the end of the day no matter what people say to you as long as YOU know who you are as a person NOTHING else in the world
matters.

Live your life. Listen to your music way too loud, be as crazy and as “different” as you want to be and always remember you’re nor alone.

The older I got, I started to realize more it’s not necessarily that any of us are inherently bad or good; you just kind of carve your own way, and you are your experiences and your surroundings and what you grow up in.

It’s not easy to be the weird kid or the rebel.

I know what it’s like to be an outcast in society. I know what it’s like to want to find strength, and more importantly, I know what it’s like to find that internal strength and rise out of the pain of being just sort of a weirdo.

The people that tell you what you enjoy is wrong, or come in your life and tell you what you’re wearing is wrong are miserable because they focus on the things that they don’t like.

The story of my life publicly has been told through ‘Alternative Press.’ Former employees, people who have worked there – my friend Ryan Downey, who wrote for ‘AP’ for a long time – I’ve been able to have really great articles written about me and talk openly about things in my life.

Every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you’ll never get back.

I know that isn’t always easy and that there is self-harm in the world. Sometimes it’s hard for people to rise above things.

The pen and the written word hold a great deal of power.

Create your own realitybecome your own rockstar, find your passion.. .and we
will be here every step of the way with you

The Misfits skull was my second tattoo, and the Danzig was my third.

I tend to have a very analytical mind, I’m constantly thinking about how things can be better or different.

I feel that there is a culture being built that is a celebration of agony. There is also a celebration of being an outcast, to the degree that you are segregating yourself in a negative way from people who may want to be your friend.

And death climbs up the steps one by one.

Take joy in who you are, we know our wings are flawed.

Creating art or something beautiful makes you a more fulfilled person than they can ever be because they’re caught up in what they hate rather than what they love.

There’s absolutely no one in the world that can tell you can’t do something. You’re the only person that can set that limitation.

Our music is never going to stop someone from bullying someone else. But you should be your own person.

Rock and roll is about having a good time, so no matter
where you are right now blast some music and forget
about lifes problems.

Each and every one of us has a fire that burns inside us. They can try like
hell to put it out, but as long as we know in our minds who we are meant to be,
they will never stand a chance.

I rather be divisive than boring. The last thing I want to be is a bowl of sugar free vanilla pudding, it’s not something you necessarily hate but it’s not something you ask for. I’d rather be something people passionately care about one way or another than be kind of in the middle.

When I was a kid, it was so important to listen only to bands nobody had ever heard of. I missed out on so much interesting music because of my need to listen to a psychobilly band that only two people knew about… Because I thought I was cool.

We truly believe with hard work, dedication and perseverance, we can become the best at what we do. No one wants to become mediocre.

Never give in, never back down.

Life isn’t about how popular you are. What girl or boy you are dating or who you know. Life is about always being true to who you are or what you believe in. Never let anyone convince you that their way is better than your way. In the end all we have is our hearts.. and our minds. This is the reason we sing.. this is the reason we cry… this is why we live.

I see so many bands, that are trying really hard to write for a person that they’ve never met. I get the idea behind it and the idea of helping people, but I feel you help people more by exposing yourself.

I had a certain kind of disassociation from the other kids because I had more interest in sociology, ideas and trying to communicate those ideas to the kids around me.

Life is all about being true to yourself and what you believe in

Be who you want to be and not care about what others think.” -Andy Sixx
Rock n roll isn’t meant to be taken so seriously, I think sometimes people forget it’s meant to be fun. A rock show is meant to be a time for people to have fun and let go of the drudgeries of life.

We will be whatever they need us to be. Call us emo’s, liars, and cheaters…tell people how awful we are and how little talent we have…do whatever it takes to make themselves feel better because at the end of the day, we are strong, we can take it. We don’t need their approval to justify our lives. Each and every one of us has a fire that burns inside us and they can try like hell to put out that flame but as long as in our minds we know who we are meant to be, they don’t stand a chance.

Without someone telling you what you are doing is wrong, you can’t say what you are doing is right.

I’m real pleased and humbled by the support that the fans show.

I need to have something to source my energy to and something to remove me from my own weird brain.

You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to any of your heroes. Become what you wish to be.

Photograph each day so we can live forever

Always be yourself and rebel against what people tell you should be and be whatever you want to.

We are a band that stylistically crosses a lot of barriers and generational gaps. The heavier portion of the band, the modern music elements, the visual part of the band appeal to a younger audience. For an older audience, we have chops and great songs that are reminiscent of the things that were great about rock and roll when they enjoyed it. We’re the kind of band that can cross those lines.

The devotion of the BVB Army, with its very big online presence, is amazing. We’ve been fortunate from the very beginning. It was something that was really able to spur on our career.

Nobody is convinced that Johnny Depp goes to Walmart dressed as Sweeney Todd, but everyone expects us to.

I encourage all of you to find strength within yourself, no matter what. Be proud of who you are and never let anyone or anything take that away from you. Inner Strength is something that we are all born with. However, I’ve learned that it requires patience and perseverance to fully achieve it. I promise you, though, that as long as you know in your heart who you are and what you want from this world, nothing is gonna stop you.

Whether I’m trying to or not, I have this inherent feeling that music is uplifting; it makes you feel victorious, and that makes you feel like you can take on the world.

Something pure to burn away the darkness that hides inside my mind

And the people who say things to you about the way you look and the way you dress, they have nothing more to their lives. That’s all they do, and you have something more in you.

Black Veil Brides will stand strong for you we will take on the world’s hatred so that you don’t have to listen to your music way to loud and be as crazy and as “different” as you want to be and always remember you’re not alone.

My job as the host of a rock awards show is not to be as divisive as possible, but certainly you want to be able to interject your jokes and how you feel about stuff.

I think Heaven and afterlife is for the living; it’s for the people that continue on and remember that person, and if you’ve done something that is substantial in your life then you can leave a legacy and do something positive.

As you get older, you realize you’re not that cool. You also realize the people you called posers are just people like you.

You can’t get anywhere flying under the radar.

As long as you are alive, you will either live to accomplish your own goals and dreams or be used as a resource to accomplish someone else’s.

I suggest that you become obsessed about the things you want; otherwise, you are going to spend a lifetime being obsessed with making up excuses as to why you didn’t get the life you wanted.

Just Remember: The people that say, “your dreams are impossible ” have already quit on theirs.

No matter how exceptional your product, you won’t benefit financially if you can’t sell it.

Get a millionaire mentor. Most of us were brought up middle class or poor and then hold ourselves to the limits and ideas of that group. I have been studying millionaires to duplicate what they did. Get your own personal millionaire mentor and study them. Most rich people are extremely generous with their knowledge and their resources.

Your family is depending on you. No better reason to bring all your game all the time.

Don’t go to work to work, go to work to prosper.

Success is your duty, obligation and responsibility

Building trust is key to discovering and understanding your buyers’ motives.

I’m going to do anything and everything, remove every boulder, every hurdle and every problem out of my way to make my dreams come true.

Obscurity is a bigger problem than money.

Don’t just make money, make a difference.

Think about it: What’s the worst thing that can happen to you if you just totally go for it?

Anyone who minimizes the importance of success to your future has given up on his or her own chances of accomplishment and is spending his or her life trying to convince others to do the same.

You can’t reach your potential without haters.

There are certain things in life that have limits, but you don’t unless you impose limits on yourself.

Rich people use debt to leverage investments and grow cash flows. Poor people use debt to buy things that make rich people richer.

Most people only work enough so that it feels like work, whereas successful people work at a pace that gets such satisfying results that work is a reward. Truly successful people don’t even call it work; for them, it’s a passion. Why? Because they do enough to win!

Quit sharing bad news and gossip you aren’t a garbage truck.

Never lower your target ; increase your actions.

Success tends to bless those who are most committed to giving it the most attention.

Most opportunities are disguised as problems.

Never lower your price, add value.

Never reduce a target. Instead, increase actions!

In comedy, falling means laughter. You can take something sacred and make it silly. The more sacred it is, the funnier it is. It has a bigger drop to fall.

Poetic talent is really easy to fake when thy sentences doth no f-king sense make.

The thing is, I always thought I could do stand-up, and so I just stayed focused on the belief that I could succeed.

I’m friends with a lot of comedians, but we don’t talk about material. Most comedians I know don’t watch a lot of other comedy.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I’m thankful for all of you. I am not thankful for the pilgrims. Buckles should never be on hats.

No one entertains the thought that maybe God does not believe in you.

I don’t need anything as long as I have my family, friends, millions of dollars, unlimited p*ssy.

Comedy is very strange to me and I don’t fully understand it’s purpose or function.

I grew up listening to Steve Martin and Robin Williams, so I didn’t ever intend to be a musical comedian. I sort of stumbled into it.

And if ten percent of men are gay and twenty percent of men are Chinese, what are the odds that a men chosen at random spends his free time and mealtime while on his knees.

I enjoy stand up so much because I take time off, and then I’ll be excited to go back to it.

Big

when I was little,
i killed ants with a magnifying glass.
and now i’m big.
and I worry i’m doing the same thing with you.

Women are like puzzles because prior to 1920 neither had the right to vote. Puzzles still don’t.

I never felt like I was stealing anyone’s fans as much as I was introducing some younger people to comedy who will eventually find tons of other comedians that they love.

I like to call everyone that I find slightly annoying a ‘sociopath.’

Once a week, I like to slip into a deep existential depression where I lose all my sense of oneness and self-worth.

Bombs the first bomb dropped unheard, unlike the loudly dropped second and third; then the final bomb dropped from the sky to the ground and the last-seen bomb made the last-heard sound.

If I had posted my first video a week later, I don’t know if it would have spread like it did. That’s why, with everything I do, I try to enjoy the making of it instead of worrying about the release and reception.

I love you just the way you are
but you don’t see you like I do.
you shouldn’t try so hard to be perfect.
trust me, perfect should try to be you.

You can give poor people this royal wedding to watch and make them feel good about themselves, or you can give them something useful like, I don’t know… a toaster.

How fitting, she thought, that her words,
after tumbling in her head all day,
came out shrunken
like they were meant for a child.

How old is too old to stop believing in, like, the tooth fairy? Like 12? I’ve got a cousin who is 18… Yeah, still believes in gay marriage.

I masturbate ’cause I’m the only one whose standards are low enough to f-k me.

For me, the only value a celebrity has, or any artist or actor or anything, is the things that they make, you know?

You got to take a deep breath and give up. The system is rigged against you.

A few people know me, and the few people that do know me only know me because they dig my stuff.

Forever and an instant met up one day,
had a short, but lovely talk,
then each went on it’s way.

I’ll stop when I think I’m not doing good stuff. I’ll never exploit something just because people like it.

I became good friends with Jack Whitehall. I think he’s great, such a great dude, and really funny.

If you were perfect, i’d tattoo this on my chest. If you were beautiful, i’d carve this into a tree trunk. If you were nice, i’d write this in a letter. But you’re none of those.

The Internet is so crazy, and you’re exposed to so many things. In an hour, you can really jump around.

For me, if you distill comedy down, it is surprise and the unexpected. That has to be it on its most base level, in any form.

Bitches and hoes don’t exist because the hoes know bo’s a feminist.

Quotes are for dumb people who can’t think of something intelligent to say on their own.

There’s only one rule in stand-up, which is that you have to be funny. Yet 99 per cent of comics look and talk exactly the same.

Fireflies hey, fireflies! fly higher, guys! fly high above this place. Till a sky rise is a wire’s size. Then fly off into space. I catch stupid bugs in jars but you’re not bugs you’re baby stars!.

I do think that stand-up comedy in general heavily favors masculinity and so I like to act a little feminine onstage.

If you can think of all the times in your life, some of the happiest times were probably when you were laughing. And some of the worst times in your life you were being laughed at.

Mmmmmm
i like that thing you do with your tongue. What do you call it? speaking? yeah, I dig it.

Postmodern comedy doesn’t work well with very old audiences, because it’s making fun of the comedy they enjoy.

At the time of ‘Words, Words, Words,’ I’m a 19-year-old getting up feeling like he’s entitled to do comedy and tell you what he thinks of the world, so that’s inherently a little bit ridiculous.

Imagination they say adults have no imagination. Not true. Just instead of dinosaurs and spaceships, they imagine silence and the new babysitter bent over the coffee table.

Your afraid of sharks?
really?
they don’t even have bones!
they have cartilage.
are you afraid of ears too?.

With ‘Words, Words, Words,’ that show was me experimenting with something, and then there was a clear direction for me.

Squaring numbers are just like women. If they’re under thirteen, just do them in your head.

I don’t like calling myself a “feminist” only because I don’t think I’ve done anything active enough to call myself one. It’d be like calling myself a civil rights activist just because I’m not racist.

I love Tim Minchin, Bill Bailey, and Hans Teeuwen, and I’m trying to synthesise elements of theatre into my show a little bit more.

Being famous is complete luck, and that’s something you can’t bank on.

Poverty. Racism. Isn’t it strange, only the homeless are begging for change?

I’m gay for Jesus, fill me with your grace. Pour your love all over me, but please aim away from my face.

People do complain about the way I act on stage… They think on stage I act too arrogant, too self-obsessed, solecistic, self-contained, synonyms.

My rabbit’s foot i’ve got a rabbit’s foot and I feel lucky that I have it, but I still know that it must’ve come from one unlucky rabbit.

In the distance, Bo saw a fairy. A fairy so beautiful that he felt proud of being called one in highschool.

They “well, man, you know what they say.” no, I don’t. I don’t know what they say. I don’t even know who they are. Who is this they? they seem pretty smug. They seem to think they know sh*t. f*ck them.

Basically, I don’t like to tweet stuff about my life. I only like to tweet jokes.

The unlimited amount of information that I have access to has also given me an unlimited threshold for how I need to be stimulated.

If I had a dime for every time a homeless guy asked me for change, I’d still say no.

Twitter is a lot like crystal meth, because it’s really fun to do and Oprah’s on it.

I’d much rather wait till my material is up to par, in my opinion, than rush it just so I can stay in the limelight a little longer.

I don’t want to put meaning on what I do because I don’t know what it is.

You how, may I ask, did you get so you, you beautiful true-to-you doer? i’ve met many today but can honestly say that i’ve never met anyone you-er.

Since I got an audience before I even had a comic voice, my material that really wasn’t worthy of an audience somehow got it, slightly unfairly.

How, may I ask, did you get so you,
you beautiful true-to-you doer?
i’ve met many today but can honestly say
that i’ve never met anyone you-er.

Life, to me, doesn’t feel like a straightforward story; it doesn’t make sense for me to get up there and just tell a story. Life feels like what my show feels like: chaotic and strange and disconnected.

I think the comedy clubs tend to homogenize the acts a little bit, because they force them to be palatable in way too many environments.

I remember being superyoung, like nine or ten years old, and thinking, ‘Man, I wonder what famous people eat for breakfast. They must have some special kind of cereal!’ My mind was so warped by the idea of fame.

I’m bored way too easily. I’m staring at screens half the day. I need to be overstimulated. And how will that express itself artistically?

We’re having a traditional Thanksgiving – turkey, mashed potatoes, hat buckles, smallpox, genocide, a blue corn moon, etc.

At once I feel that comedy is this amazing sort of transcendent thing, and I’m also open to the fact that maybe it’s just an evolutionary hiccup, something that upright apes do in their free time.

I think I wear my hypocrisy on my sleeve. I would never say I’m not a complete hypocrite.

Perfect I love you just the way you are but you don’t see you like I do. You shouldn’t try so hard to be perfect. Trust me, perfect should try to be you.

I’m happy with what I’m doing. I try not to focus on how I’ve changed. I just try to focus on what I’m doing now.

I’m grateful for every stupid mistake and dumb joke I tried to make.

I actually wrestled in high school. I was only in one match, and I lost… my virginity.

I love you just the way you are but you don’t see you like I do. You shouldn’t try so hard to be perfect. Trust me, perfect should try to be you.

If comedy is about surprises, about tension, there’s a lot of tension and surprise there, in the fact that people are expecting this to be natural.

There’s a certain line between jokes and music and poetry that’s a bit blurred in my mind.

The strength of comedy is I don’t have to answer to anybody but sometimes you want to learn from other people and see your ideas strengthen by other people.

It feels like we’re always juggling many pieces of information at once or trying out many personas at once. It makes life slightly nonlinear.

I like to joke about being gay because it’s something teenagers would never joke about.

If I was confronted with some 20-year-old American hotshot, I’d hate him.

Maybe life on earth could be heaven, doesn’t just the thought of it make it worth a try?

Searching i’m not looking in every nook and cranny for it. I’ll do the nooks. No way I left my keys in some f*cking cranny.

Judge jesus I said, “you can’t judge me. Only jesus can!” he said, “well I can ’cause i’m a judge and ’cause you just killed a man.

The classic comedian says there’s nothing that’s taboo; if you laugh at one thing you’ve got to laugh at everything, that comedy is taking people to dark areas and showing them the light.

A man who doesn’t know the truth is just an idiot, but a man who knows the truth and calls it a lie is a crook.

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.

See now the power of truth; the same experiment which at first glance seemed to show one thing, when more carefully examined, assures us of the contrary.

Who would set a limit to the mind of man? Who would dare assert that we know all there is to be known?

To be humane, we must ever be ready to pronounce that wise, ingenious and modest statement ‘I do not know’.

You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.

He who looks the higher is the more highly distinguished, and turning over the great book of nature (which is the proper object of philosophy) is the way to elevate one’s gaze.

I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments, and demonstrations.

The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error.

The laws of nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics.

Copernicus, galileo, and kepler did not solve an old problem, they asked a new question, and in doing so they changed the whole basis on which the old questions had been framed.

All the world says: yes we know what’s written in the books but now let’s see what our eyes tell us.

La verità riesce ad imporsi solo nella misura in cui noi la imponiamo; la vittoria della ragione non può essere che la vittoria di coloro che ragionano.

Chi sa perché il dubbio appare agli uomini come una felicità.

Knowing thyself, that is the greatest wisdom.

Telling me there’s no difference between the moon and the earth?.

Passion is the genesis of genius.

Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.

They seemed to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment and growth of the arts; not their dimination or destruction.

If the world is turning, even the church can’t stop it; if it isn’t turning, nobody can go out and make it turn.

Galileo was challenged because he declared a theory to be a fact and argued with the church about the genuine meaning of the bible.

By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.

Sventurata la terra che non ha eroi. ”
“ no. Sventurata la terra che ha bisogno di eroi.

I’m teaching all the time. When am I to learn?.

What galileo and newton were to the seventeenth century, darwin was to the nineteenth.

The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics.

The deeper I go in considering the vanities of popular reasoning, the lighter and more foolish I find them. What greater stupidity can be imagined than that of calling jewels, silver, and gold “precious,” and earth and soil “base”?

The greatest wisdom is to get to know oneself.

…unmystical, hard-headed, argumentative, and possessed of a powerful personality that did not take easily to being contradicted. [galileo].

In my studies of astronomy and philosophy I hold this opinion about the universe, that the Sun remains fixed in the centre of the circle of heavenly bodies, without changing its place; and the Earth, turning upon itself, moves round the Sun.

I give infinite thanks to God, who has been pleased to make me the first observer of marvelous things.

Una delle principali cause della miseria delle scienze sta, molto spesso, nella loro presunzione di essere ricche. Scopo della scienza non è tanto quello di aprire una porta all’infinito sapere, quanto quello di porre una barriera all’infinita ignoranza.

Where the senses fail us, reason must step in.

We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves.

Nature is relentless and unchangeable, and it is indifferent as to whether its hidden reasons and actions are understandable to man or not.

Proof seduces them. One of the greatest pleasures of the human race is thinking.

The prohibition of science would be contrary to the Bible, which in hundreds of places teaches us how the greatness and the glory of God shine forth marvelously in all His works, and is to be read above all in the open book of the heavens.

Galileo, yet men turn around women!.

It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved.

Names and attributes must be accommodated to the essence of things, and not the essence to the names, since things come first and names afterwards.

The Milky Way is nothing else but a mass of innumerable stars planted together in clusters.

It is a beautiful and delightful sight to behold the body of the moon.

Pensare è uno dei massimi piaceri concessi al genere umano.

The egyptians saw the sun and called him ra, the sun god. He rode across the sky in his chariot until it was time to sleep. Copernicus and galileo proved otherwise and poor ra lost his divinity.

The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.

إنه ليل رهيب للإنسان، ذلك الليل الذي تتكشف فيه الحقيقة. انها ساعة من العمى تلك التي يؤمن فيها الإنسان بعقل البشر.

Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed.

Stupidity isn’t invincible.

Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.

The nature of the human mind is such that unless it is stimulated by images of things acting upon it from without, all remembrance of them passes easily away.

Istoria ştiinţei este ca o ştafetă. Copernic a preluat steagul de la aristarh, de la cicero, de la plutarh; şi galileo a preluar steagul de la copernicus.

La science ne connaît qu’une loi : la contribution scientifique. (scène 14, andrea, la vie de galilée, ).

Sventurata la terra che ha bisogno di eroi.

In the sciences, the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man.

Thinking is one of the greatest pleasures of the human race.

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.

Scopo della scienza non è tanto quello di aprire una porta all’infinito sapere, quanto quello di porre una barriera all’infinita ignoranza.

Nonetheless, it moves.

Measure what can be measured, and make measureable what cannot be measured.

Two truths cannot contradict one another.

You can’t teach anybody anything, only make them realize the answers are already inside them.

We owe a huge debt to galileo for emancipating us all from the stupid belief in an earth-centered or man-centered (let alone god-centered) system. He quite literally taught us our place and allowed us to go on to make extraordinary advances in knowledge.

Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.

There are those who reason well, but they are greatly outnumbered by those who reason badly.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use.

Philosophy is written in that great book which ever lies before our eyes — I mean the universe — but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols, in which it is written.

Such a lot is won when even a single man gets to his feet and says no.

E pur si muove.

(albeit it does move.)

[what galileo purportedly muttered after torturers forced him to recant his theory that the earth orbits the sun.].

Wer die wahrheit nicht weiß, der ist bloß ein dummkopf. Aber wer sie weiß und sie eine lüge nennt, der ist ein verbrecher.

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.

Facts which at first seem improbable will, even on scant explanation, drop the cloak which has hidden them and stand forth in naked and simple beauty.

We must say that there are as many squares as there are numbers.

Chi non conosce la verità è soltanto uno sciocco; ma chi, conoscendola, la chiama bugia, è un malfattore!.

If I were again beginning my studies, I would follow the advice of Plato and start with mathematics.

To understand the Universe, you must understand the language in which it’s written, the language of Mathematics.

God is known by nature in his works, and by doctrine in his revealed word.

It vexes me when they would constrain science by the authority of the Scriptures, and yet do not consider themselves bound to answer reason and experiment.

We’re better than galileo. Because he’s dead.

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.

إذا أخذت في اعتبارك العقبات، فإن أقصر خط بين نقطتين هو الطريق المتعرج.

La verità è figlia del tempo e non dell’autorità.

My dear kepler, what would you say of the learned here, who, replete with the pertinacity of the asp, have steadfastly refused to cast a glance through the telescope? what shall we make of this? shall we laugh, or shall we cry?.

تعيس هو البلد الذي يحتاج إلى أبطال.

Wine is sunlight, held together by water.

With regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them.

Whatsoever things common to man, that man has done, man can do.

If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life.

To be once defeated is to find cause for an everlasting struggle to reach the top.

Black men, you were once great; you shall be great again. Lose not courage or faith, go forward.

Be Black, buy Black, think Black, and all else will take care of itself.

She makes one happy, then miserable. You are to her kind, then unkind. Constant yet inconstant. Thus we have WOMAN. No real man can do without her.

With confidence, you have won before you have started.

Intelligence rules the world, ignorance carries the burden.

Be as proud of your race today as our as our fathers were in days of yore. We have beautiful history, and we shall create another in the future that will astonish the world.

The history of a movement, the history of a nation, the history of a race is the guide-post of that movement’s destiny, that nation’s destiny, that race’s destiny.

I read “Up From Slavery” and then my dream – if I may so call it – of being a race leader dawned.

Look to Africa, for there a king will be crowned.

History is the land-mark by which we are directed into the true course of life.

Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa! Let us work towards the one glorious end of a free, redeemed and mighty nation. Let Africa be a bright star among the constellation of nations.

Real men laugh at opposition; real men smile when enemies appear.

Liberate the minds of men and ultimately you will liberate the bodies of men.

The Black skin is not a badge of shame, but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness.

The only protection against INJUSTICE in man is POWER?Physical, financial and scientific.

Let the sky and God be our limit and Eternity our measurement.

The power that holds Africa is human, and it is recognized that whatsoever man has done, man can do.

I regard the Klan, the Anglo-Saxon clubs and White American societies, as far as the Negro is concerned, as better friends of the race than all other groups of hypocritical whites put together.

God and Nature first made us what we are, and then out of our own created genius we make ourselves what we want to be. Follow always that great law. Let the sky and God be our limit and Eternity our measurement.

If we as a people realized the greatness from which we came we would be less likely to disrespect ourselves.

You must not mistake lip-service and noise for bravery and service.

Our success educationally, industrially and politically is based upon the protection of a nation founded by ourselves. And the nation can be nowhere else but in Africa.

If I die in atlanta my work shall then only begin, but I shall live, in the physical or spiritual to see the day of africa’s glory.

Take advantage of every opportunity; where there is none, make it for yourself, and let history record that as we toiled laboriously and courageously, we worked to live gloriously.

Great principles, great ideals know no nationality.

The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind

There can be no peace among men and nations, so long as the strong continues to oppress the weak, so long as injustice is done to other peoples, just so long we will have cause for war, and make a lasting peace an impossibility.

When all else fails to organize the people, conditions will.

Let no voice but your own speak to you from the depths. Let no influence but your own raise you in time of peace and time of war. Hear all, but attend only that which concerns you.

A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.

There is no strength but that which is destructive, because man has lost his virtues, and only respects force, which he himself cannot counteract.

Look to Africa, when a black king shall be crowned for the day of deliverance is at hand!

You at this time can only be destroyed by yourselves, from within and not from without. You have reached the point where the victory is to be won from within and can only be lost from within.

If the Negro is not careful he will drink in all the poison of modern civilization and die from the effects of it.

Never forget that intelligence rules the world and ignorance carries the burden. Therefore, remove yourself as far as possible from ignorance and seek as far as possible to be intelligent.

Men who are in earnest are not afraid of consequences.

There shall be no solution to this race problem until you, yourselves, strike the blow for liberty.

We are not engaged in domestic politics, in church building or in social uplift work, but we are engaged in nation building.

Do not remove the kinks from your hair–remove them from your brain.

Let us prepare TODAY. For the TOMORROWS in the lives of the nations will be so eventful that Negroes everywhere will be called upon to play their part in the survival of the fittest human group.

The race needs workers at this time, not plagiarists, sopists and mere imitators; but men and women who are able to create, to originate and improve, and thus make an independent racial contribution to the world and civilisation.

The thing to do is to get organized; keep separated and you will be exploited, you will be robbed, you will be killed. Get organized and you will compel the world to respect you.

It is by education that we become prepared for our duties and responsibilities in life. If one is badly educated he must naturally fail in the proper assumption and practice of his duties and responsibilities.

I pray God that we shall never use our physical prowess to oppress the human race, but we will use our strength, physically, morally and otherwise to preserve humanity and civilization.

Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people.

Always try to associate with people from whom you can learn something. All the knowledge that you want is in the world, and all you have to do is go and seek it.

The UNIA teaches our race self-help and self-reliance… in all those things that contribute to human happiness and well-being.

If you haven’t confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started.

The negro will have to build his own industry, art, sciences, literature, and culture before the world will stop to consider him.

You may call me a Klansman if you will, but, potentially, every white man is a Klansman, as far as the Negro in competition with whites socially, economically and politically is concerned, and there is no use lying.

Glorious shall be the battle when the time comes to fight for our people and our race.

Let us not try to be the best or worst of others, but let us make the effort to be the best of ourselves.

What you do to-day that is worthwhile, inspires others to act at some future time.

Present day statesmen are making the biggest blunder of the age if they believe that there can be any peace without equity and justice to all mankind.

There is no humanity before that which starts with yourself.

The value of knowledge is to use it. It is not humanly possible that a person can retain all knowledge of the world, but if a person knows how to search for all the knowledge of the world, he will find it when he wants it.

We see a new Ethiopia, a new Africa, stretching her hands of influence throughout the world, teaching man the way of life and peace, The Way to God.

Every man has a right to his own opinion. Every race has a right to its own action; therefore let no man persuade you against your will, let no other race influence you against your own.

Whipped. It annoys me to be defeated; hence to me, to be once defeated is to find cause for an everlasting struggle to reach the top.

Hungry men have no respect for law, authority or human life.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds!

Take advantage of every opportunity; where there is none, make it for yourself.

I know no national boundary where the Negro is concerned. The whole world is my province until Africa is free.

To see your enemy and know him is a part of the complete education of man.

The Greatest Weapon Used Against the Negro is Disorganization.

We were like crabs in a barrel, that none would allow the other to climb over, but on any such attempt all would continue to pull back into the barrel the one crab that would make the effort to climb out.

This hour we are stretching forth our hands with the desire to teach the world the true principles of mercy and justice.

Was the crying voice from the grave that said, ‘garvey, we have suffered for 250 years for your day and for your time; we expect something from you at this hour.’”16.

To have built up a new organization, which was not purely political, among negroes in america was a wonderful feat, for the negro politician does not allow any other kind of organization within his race to thrive.

We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery, for though others may free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is our only ruler; sovereign.

Go to work! Go to work in the morn of a new creation… until you have… reached the height of self-progress, and from that pinnacle bestow upon the world a civilization of your own.

No two persons think alike, even if they outwardly profess the same faith, so we have as many religions in Christianity as we have believers.

If you get up everyday and you don’t learn you are
a fool

There is no force like success, and that is why the individual makes all effort to surround himself throughout life with the evidence of it; as of the individual, so should it be of the nation.

The ends you serve that are selfish will take you no further than yourself but the ends you serve that are for all, in common, will take you into eternity.

There is nothing in the world common to man, that man cannot do.

We were the first Fascists, when we had 100,000 disciplined men, and were training children, Mussolini was still an unknown. Mussolini copied our Fascism.

We welcome the opposition of the world, because we are determined to see the battle through. Africa’s battle-cry is not yet heard.

It is only the belief and the confidence we have in a God why man is able to understand his own social institutions, and move and live like a rational human being.

Negro producers, Negro distributors, Negro consumers! The world of Negroes can be self contained. We desire earnestly to deal with the rest of the world, but if the rest of the world desire not, we seek not

The pen is mightier than the sword, but the tongue is mightier than them both put together.

American suffragist, speech “Is Woman Suffrage Progressing?” at Stockholm, Sweden Radicalism is a label that is always applied to people who are endeavoring to get freedom.

Life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience that primordial shamanism is based on is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego.

We do not birth our children into the world of nature. We birth our children into the world of culture.

Television is by nature the dominator drug par excellence. Control of content, uniformity of content, repeatability of content make it inevitably a tool of coersion, brainwashing, and manipulation.

Nobody is smarter than you are. And what if they are? what good is their understanding doing you?.

What we call reality is in fact nothing more than a culturally sanctioned and linguistically reinforced hallucination.

There are times when everything seems to go right, and times when everything seems to go wrong.

We are led by the least among us – the least intelligent, the least noble, the least visionary. We are led by the least among us and we do not fight back against the dehumanizing values that are handed down as control icons.

Closure is a neurotic and infantile demand to make upon reality, other people, or language.

Art’s task is to save the soul of mankind.. anything less is a dithering while Rome burns.

We have been to the moon, we have charted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atom, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together.

We are caught inside a mystery, veiled in an enigma, locked inside a riddle

The long night of human history is drawing at last to its conclusion.

If you don’t have a plan, you become part of somebody else’s plan.

Every step into freedom contains within it the potential for greater bondage.

The surface of things is not where attention should rest.

Science does not deal with subjective experience… Well that’s too bad because that is all any of us ever have.

Chaos is what we’ve lost touch with. This is why it is given a bad name. It is feared by the dominant archetype of our world, which is ego, which clenches because its existence is defined in terms of control.

The discs which haunt the skies of Earth indicate that the unconscious cannot be kept waiting forever. These things are going to have to be dealt with.

If the words ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ don’t include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the declaration of independence isn’t worth the hemp it was written on.

A hallucination is a species of reality, as capable of teaching you as a videotape about Kilimanjaro or anything else that falls through your life.

What is unusual about Earth is that language, literally, has become alive. It has infested matter. It is replicating and defining and building itself. And it is in us.

We can begin the restructuring of thought by declaring legitimate what we have denied for so long. Lets us declare nature to be legitimate. The notion of illegal plants is obnoxious and ridiculous in the first place.

Nothing comes unannounced, but many can miss the announcement. So it’s very important to actually listen to your own intuition rather than driving through it.

You have to take seriously the notion that understanding the universe is your responsibility, because the only understanding of the universe that will be useful to you is your own understanding.

If we could feel what we are doing to the Earth, we would stop immediately.

The imagination is the golden pathway to everywhere.

Liberate yourself from the illusion of culture.
Take responsibility for what you think and what you do.

In fact, I think when we carry out a complete analysis of time, I think what we’re going to discover is that like matter, time is composed of elemental, discrete types.

Nature is not our enemy, to be raped and conquered. Nature is ourselves, to be cherished and explored.

The notion of illegal plants and animals is obnoxious and ridiculous.

Cultures are virtual realities made of language.

How can we know who is the other until we know who is the self?

The real secret of magic is that the world is made of words, and that if you know the words that the world is made of you can make of it whatever you wish.

The imagination is the goal of history. I see culture as an effort to literally realize our collective dreams.

Life must be a preparation for the transition to another dimension.

Half the time you think your thinking you’re actually listening.

As a society we cannot seem to make peace with nature. As individuals, it’s hard for us to be at peace with ourselves.

Nature has an economy, an elegance, a style, that if we could but emulate it we could rise out of the rubble we are making out of the planet

Language, thought, analysis, art, dance, poetry, mythmaking: these are the things that point the way toward the realm of the eschaton.

Belief is a toxic and dangerous attitude toward reality. After all, if it’s there it doesn’t require your belief- and if it’s not there why should you believe in it?

What blinds us, or what makes historical progress very difficult, is our lack of awareness of our ignorance.

We don’t have to look far for miracles because they’re all around us. Everything is astonishing. The universe on it’s surface is alive with mystery.

The most beautiful things in the universe are inside the human mind.

I believe reality is a marvelous joke staged for my edification and amusement and everybody is working very hard to make me happy.

You see, a secret is not something untold. It’s something which can’t be told.

The only real experience that counts, is your own.

Animals are something invented by plants to move seeds around. An extremely yang solution to a peculiar problem which they faced.

That’s what a god is. Somebody who knows more than you do about whatever you’re dealing with.

The problem is not to find the answer, it’s to face the answer.

The main thing to understand is that we are imprisoned in some kind of work of art.

I’ll try to be around and about. But if i’m not, then you know that i’m behind your eyelids, and i’ll meet you there.

We are so much the victims of abstraction that with the Earth in flames we can barely rouse ourselves to wander across the room and look at the thermostat.

You are a divine being. You matter, you count. You come from realms of unimaginable power and light, and you will return to those realms.

I don’t believe consciousness is generated in the brain any more than television programs are made inside my TV. The box is too small.

Our ability to destroy ourselves is the mirror image of our ability to save ourselves.

What we call imagination is actually the universal library of what’s real. You couldn’t imagine it if it weren’t real somewhere, sometime.

Alchemy is really the secret tradition of the redemption of spirit from matter.

The word ‘self’ is as great a mystery as the word ‘other’. It’s just a polarity between two mysteries.

Western civilization is a loaded gun pointed at the head of this planet.

It is the imagination that argues for the Divine Spark within human beings. It is literally a decent of the World’s Soul into all of us.

What civilization is, is 6 billion people trying to make themselves happy by standing on each other’s shoulders and kicking each other’s teeth in. It’s not a pleasant situation.

When we free ourselves we are not freed into a void. When we free ourselves we are freed into a dimension in which Art is an obligation.

The cost of sanity in this society, is a certain level of alienation.

Astonishment is the proper response to reality.

History is just this froth of artifact production that has appeared in the last ten to fifteen thousand years. It spread across the planet very quickly. But that mind in man just goes back and back into the darkness.

There is a transcendental dimension beyond language… It’s just hard as hell to talk about!.

The truth for sure,
when it arrives,
will make you smile.
If it doesn’t,
you should seek
a deeper truth.

The world which we perceive is a tiny fraction of the world which we can perceive, which is a tiny fraction of the perceivable world.

Who is to say what is real and what is not?’Real’ is a distinction of a naïve mind.

Without sounding too cliche, the Internet really is the birth of global mind.

The mystery is in the body and the way the body works itself into nature.

The syntactical nature of reality, the real secret of magic, is that the world is made of words. And if you know the words that the world is made of, you can make of it whatever you wish.

We cannot evolve faster than our language. The edge of being is the edge of meaning, and somehow we have to push the edge of meaning. We have to extend it.

The message of psychedelics is that culture can be re-engineered as a set of emotional and spiritual values rather than products. This is terrifying news.

You are the cutting edge of a thirteen billion year old process of defining novelty. Your acts matter. Your thoughts matter. Your purpose? To add to the complexity. Your enemy? Disorder, entropy, stupidity, and tastelessness.

I live up at about the 2000 feet level on a five acre piece of forest that I built a small house on.

My technique is don’t believe anything. If you believe in something, you are automatically precluded from believing its opposite.

I think ideology is toxic, all ideology. It’s not that there are good ones and bad ones. All ideology is toxic, because ideology is a kind of insult to the gift of human free thinking.

Beauty is self-defined, perceived and understood without ambiguity. It’s the stuff that lies under the skins of our individual existences.

The problem is we have to transcend cultural languages and fall into a phase with the communication systems that nature has placed all around us.

Human beings are co-partners with deity in the project of being. This is the basis of all magic.

We are consciousness. We may not always be monkeys.

The drugs of the future will be computers. The computers of the future will be drugs.

Only psychos and shamans create their own reality.

Culture is a plot against the expansion of consciousness.

She raised an eyebrow. “you got something to say to me, seaweed brain?”

you’d probably kick my butt.”

you know i’d kick your butt.”

i brushed the cake off my hands. “when I was at the river styx, turning invulnerable . . . Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal.”

annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. “yeah?”

then up on olympus,” I said, “when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking-“

oh, you so wanted to.”

well, maybe a little. But I didn’t, because I thought-i didn’t want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking . . .” my throat felt really dry.

anyone in particular?” annabeth asked, her voice soft.

i looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile.

you’re laughing at me,” I complained.

i am not!”

you are so not making this easy.”

then she laughed for real, and she put her hands
around my neck. “i am never, ever going to make things easy for you, seaweed brain. Get used to it.

Hey, can I see that sword you were using?”
i showed him riptide, and explained how it turned from a pen into a sword just by uncapping it.
“cool! does it ever run out of ink?”
“um, well, I don’t actually write with it.”
“are you really the son of poseidon?”
“well, yeah.”
“can you surf really well, then?”
i looked at grover, who was trying hard not to laugh.
“jeez, nico,” I said. “i’ve never really tried.”
he went on asking questions. Did I fight a lot with thalia, since she was a daughter of zeus? (i didn’t answer that one.) if annabeth’s mother was athena, the goddess of wisdom, then why didn’t annabeth know better than to fall off a cliff? (i tried not to strangle nico for asking that one.) was annabeth my girlfriend? (at this point, I was ready to stick the kid in a meat-flavored sack and throw him to the wolves.).

The throne rumbled. A wave of gale-force anger slammed into me.
who dares-
the voice stopped abruptly, the anger retreated, which was a good thing, because just those two words had almost blasted my mind to shreds.
percy. My fathers voice was still angry but more controlled. What-exactly-are you doing on my throne?
“i’m sorry, father,” I said. “i needed to get your attention.”
this was a very dangerous thing to do. Even for you. If I hadn’t looked before I blasted, you would now be a puddle of seawater.

Where’s the glory in repeating what others have done?.

Grover was sniffing the wind, looking nervous. He fished out his acorns and threw them into the sand, then played his pipes. They rearranged themselves in a pattern that made no sense to me, but grover looked concerned.
“that’s us,” he said. “those five nuts right there.”
“which one is me?” I asked.
“the little deformed one,” zoe suggested.
“oh, shut up.

I nodded, looking at rachel with respect. “you hit the lord of the titans in the eye with a blue plastic hairbrush.

You’re dionysus,” I said. “the god of wine.”
mr. D rolled his eyes. “what do they say these days, grover? do the children say ‘well duh!’?”
y-yes, mr. D.”
then, well, duh! percy jackson. Did you think I was aphrodite, perhaps?”
you’re a god.”
yes, child.”
a god. You.

The first lesson every child of athena learned: mom was the best at everything, and you should never, ever suggest otherwise.

Annabeth:my fatal flaw. That’s what the sirens showed me. My fatal flaw is hubris.
percy: the brown stuff they spread on veggie sandwiches?
annabeth:no, seaweed brain. That’s hummus. Hubris is worse.
percy: what could be worse than hummus?
annabeth: hubris means deadly pride, percy. Thinking you can do things better than anyone else… Even the gods.

This is buford,” leo announced.
“you name your furniture?” frank asked.

Why can’t you place a blessing like that on us?” I asked.

“it only works on wild animals.”

“so it would only affect percy,” annabeth reasoned.

“hey!” I protested.

Percy: don’t I get a kiss for luck? it’s kind of a tradition, right?
annabeth: come back alive, seaweed brain. Then we’ll see.

Safety from what? who’s after me?”
oh, nobody much,” grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. “just the lord of the dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions.

So…these pillars of hercules. Are they dangerous?”
annabeth stayed focused on the cliffs. “for greeks, the pillars marked the end of the known world. The romans said the pillars were inscribed with a latin warning—”
“non plus ultra,” percy said.
annabeth looked stunned. “yeah. Nothing further beyond. How did you know?”
percy pointed. “because i’m looking at it.

You are okay?” he asked. “not eaten by monsters?”
“not even a little bit.” I showed him that I still had both arms and both legs, and tyson clapped happily.
“yay!” he said. “now we can eat peanut butter sandwiches and ride fish ponies! we can fight monsters and see annabeth and make things go boom!”
i hoped he didn’t mean all at the same time, but I told him absolutely, we’d have a lot of fun this summer.

Gods of olympus.” piper stared at leo. “what happened to you?”
his hair was greased back. He had welding goggles on his forehead, a lipstick mark on his cheek, tattoos all over his arms, and a t-shirt that read hot stuff, bad boy, and team leo.
“long story,” he said.

It’s him,” I said. “typhon.”
i was seriously hoping chiron would say something good, like ‘no, that’s our huge friend leroy! he’s going to help us!.

Very slowly using two fingers, annabeth drew her dagger. Instead of dropping it, she tossed it as far as she could into the water.

octavian made a squeaking sound. “what was that for? I didn’t say toss it! that could’ve been evidence. Or spoils of war!”

annabeth tried for a dumb-blonde smile, like: oh, silly me. Nobody who knew her would have been fooled. But octavian seemed to buy it. He huffed in exasperation.

“you other two…” he pointed his blade a hazel and piper. “put your weapons on the dock. No funny bus–“

all around the romans, charleston harbor erupted like a las vegas fountain putting on a show. When the wall of seawater subsided, the three romans were in the bay, spluttering and frantically trying to stay afloat in their armor. Percy stood on the dock, holding annabeth’s dagger.

“you dropped this,” he said, totally poker-faced.

This is the wilderness school. ‘where the kids are animals.

Nothing like watching your relatives fight, I always say.

Behold!” percy shouted. “the god’s chosen beverage. Tremble before the horror of diet coke!.

I’d love to tell you I had some deep revelation on my way down, that I came to terms with my own mortality, laughed in the face of death, et cetera.

the truth? my only thought was: aaaaggghhhhh!.

Percy blinked. “so your brother is a winged horse. But you’re also my half brother, which means all the flying horses in the world are my…you know what? lets’ forget it.

It’s funny how humans can wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality.

You drool when you sleep.

Please, percy…change your clothes. You smell like you’ve been run over by an electric horse.

Dreams like a podcast,
downloading truth in my ears.
they tell me cool stuff.”
“apollo?” I guess, because I figured nobody else could make a haiku that bad.
he put his finger to his lips. “i’m incognito. Call me fred.”
“a god named fred?.

I said hello to the poodle.

Blackjack,” percy said, “this is piper and jason. They’re friends.”
the horse nickered.
“uh, maybe later,” percy answered.
piper had heard that percy could speak to horses, being the son of the horse lord poseidon, but she’d never seen it in action.
“what does blackjack want?” she asked.
“donuts,” percy said. “always donuts.

You sneaked into my cabin?”
annabeth rolled her eyes. “percy, you’ll be seventeen in two months. You can’t seriously be worried about getting in trouble with coach hedge.”
“uh, have you seen his baseball bat?”
“besides, seaweed brain, I just thought we could take a walk. We haven’t had any time to be together alone. I want to show you something—my favorite place aboard the ship.”
percy’s pulse was still in overdrive, but it wasn’t from fear of getting in trouble. “can i, you know, brush my teeth first?”
“you’d better,” annabeth said. “because i’m not kissing you until you do. And brush your hair while you’re at it.

Even strength must bow to wisdom sometimes.

Suspecting and knowing are not the same.

She’d also called me brave…unless she was talking to the catfish.

How did you die?”
“we er….drowned in a bathtub.”
“all three of you?”
“it was a big bathtub.

Monkey bar,” annabeth said. “i’m great at these.” she leaped onto to the first rung and start swinging her way across. She was scared of tiny spiders, but not of plummeting to her death from a set of monkey bars. Go figure.

Braccas meas vescimini!”
i wasn’t sure where the latin came from. I think it meant ‘eat my pants!.

Annabeth,” he said hesitantly, “in new rome, demigods can live their whole lives in peace.”
her expression turned guarded. “reyna explained it to me. But, percy, you belong at camp half-blood. That other life—”
“i know,” percy said. “but while I was there, I saw so many demigods living without fear: kids going to college, couples getting married and raising families. There’s nothing like that at camp half-blood. I kept thinking about you and me…and maybe someday when this war with the giants is over…”
it was hard to tell in the golden light, but he thought annabeth was blushing. “oh,” she said…
“i’m sorry,” he said. “i just…i had to think of that to keep going. To give me hope. Forget I mentioned—”
“no!” she said. “gods, percy, that’s so sweet.

Now, come over here so I can pat you down.”
“but you don’t have-” percy stopped. “uh, sure.”
he stood next to the armless statue. Terminus conducted a rigorous mental pat down.
“you seem to be clean,” terminus decided. “do you have anything to declare?”
“yes,” percy said. “i declare that this is stupid.

He turned to frank who was trying to pull his fingers out of the chinese handcuffs…
“okay,” frank relented. “sure.” he frowned at his fingers, trying to pull them out of the trap. “uh, how do you—”
leo chuckled. “man, you’ve never seen those before? there’s a simple trick to getting out.”
frank tugged again with no luck. Even hazel was trying not to laugh.
frank grimaced with concentration. Suddenly, he disappeared. On the deck where he’d been standing, a green iguana crouched next to an empty set of chinese handcuffs.
“well done, frank zhang,” leo said dryly, doing his impression of chiron the centaur. “that is exactly how people beat chinese handcuffs. They turn into iguanas.

Deadlines just aren’t real to me until i’m staring one in the face.

The real story of the fleece: there were these two children of zeus, cadmus and europa, okay? they were about to get offered up as human sacrifices, when they prayed to zeus to save them. So zeus sent this magical flying ram with golden wool, which picked them up in greece and carried them all the way to colchis in asia minor. Well, actually it carried cadmus. Europa fell off and died along the way, but that’s not important.”
“it was probably important to her.

Wow,” thalia muttered. “apollo is hot.”
“he’s the sun god,” I said.
“that’s not what I meant.

My mother made a squeaking sound that might of been either “yes” or “help”.
poseidon took it as a yes and came in.
paul was looking back and forth between us, trying to read our expressions.
finally he stepped forward.
“hi, i’m paul blofis.”
poseidon raised an eyebrow and then shook his hand.
“blowfish, did you say?”
“ah, no. Blofis, actually.”
“oh, I see,” poseidon said. “a shame. I quite like blowfish. I am poseidon.”
“poseidon? that’s an interesting name.”
“yes, I like it. I’ve gone by other names, but I do prefer poseidon.”
“like the god of the sea.”
“very much like that, yes”
“well!” my mother interrupted. “um, were so glad you could drop by. Paul, this is percy’s father.”
“ah.” paul nodded, though he didn’t look real pleased. “i see.”
poseidon smiled at me. “there you are, my boy. And tyson, hello, son!”
“daddy!” tyson [shouted]…
paul’s jaw dropped. He stared at my mother. “tyson is…”
“not mine,” she promised. “it’s a long story.

Knowing too much of your future is never a good thing.

My name is percy jackson.
i’m twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at yancy academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate new york.
am I a troubled kid?
yeah. You could say that.

Can you surf really well, then?”
i looked at grover, who was trying hard not to laugh.
“jeez, nico,” I said. “i’ve never really tried.”
he went on asking questions. Did I fight a lot with thalia, since she was a daughter of zeus? (i didn’t answer that one.) if annabeth’s mother was athena, the goddess of wisdom, then why didn’t annabeth know better than to fall off a cliff? (i tried not to strangle nico for asking that one.) was annabeth my girlfriend? (at this point, I was ready to stick the kid in a meat-flavored sack and throw him to the wolves.).

Aphros nodded, a glint of pride in his eyes. “we have trained all the famous mer-heroes! name a famous mer-hero, and we have trained him or her!”
“oh, sure,” leo said. “like…um, the little mermaid?”
aphros frowned. “who? no! like triton, glaucus, weissmuller, and bill!”
“oh. ”leo had no idea who any of those people were. “you trained bill? impressive.

Festus just detected a large group of eagles behind us—long-range radar, still not in sight.”
piper leaned over the console. “are you sure they’re roman?”
leo rolled his eyes. “no, pipes. It could be a random group of giant eagles flying in perfect formation. Of course they’re roman!.

Aphrodite,” [annabeth] said.
“venus?” hazel asked in amazement.
“mom,” piper said with no enthusiasm.
“girls!” the goddess spread her arms like she wanted a group hug.
the three demigods did not oblige. Hazel backed into a palmetto tree.

Humans see what they want to see.

Grover didn’t say anything for awhile. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, “can I have your apple?.

All I could think of was that the teachers must’ve found the illegal stash of candy i’d been selling out of my dorms room. Or maybe they’d realized I got my essay on tom sawyer from the internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.

Save yourselves!” percy warned. “it is too late for us!”
then he gasped and pointed to the spot where frank was hiding. “oh, no! frank is turning into a crazy dolphin!”
nothing happened.
“i said,” percy repeated, “frank is turning into a crazy dolphin!”
frank stumbled out of nowhere, making a big show of grabbing his throat. “oh, no,” he said, like he was reading from a teleprompter. “i am turning into a crazy dolphin.”
he began to change, his nose elongating into a snout, his skin becoming sleek and gray. He fell to the deck as a dolphin, his tail thumping against the boards.
the pirate crew disbanded in terror.

Afterward, I had the last laugh. I made an air bubble at the bottom of the lake. Our friends kept waiting for us to come up, but hey-when you are the son of poseidon, you don’t have to hurry. And it was pretty much the best underwater kiss of all time.

Hades raised an eyebrow. When he sat forward in his throne, shadowy faces appeared in the folds of his black robes, faces of torment,as if the garment was stitched of trapped souls from the fields of punishment, trying to get out. The adhd part of me wondered, off-task, whether the rest of his clothes were made the same way. What horrible things would you have to do in your life to get woven into hades’ underwear?.

What if it lines up like it did in the trojan war … Athena versus poseidon?”
“i don’t know. But I just know that i’ll be fighting next to you.”
“why?”
“because you’re my friend, seaweed brain. Any more stupid questions?.

Hazel!” he yelled. “that box! open it!”
she hesitated, then saw the box he meant. Te label read warning. Do not open.
“open it!” leo yelled again.

[piper] rushed to get dressed. By the time she got up on deck, the others had already gathered—all hastily dressed except for coach hedge, who had pulled the night watch.
frank’s vancouver winter olympics shirt was inside out. Percy wore pajama pants and a bronze breastplate, which was an interesting fashion statement. Hazel’s hair was all blown to one side as though she’d walked through a cyclone; and leo had accidentally set himself on fire. His t-shirt was in charred tatters. His arms were smoking.

I still don’t understand what a sea god would be doing in atlanta.”
leo snorted. “what’s a wine god doing in kansas? gods are weird.

Remind me again-why do you hate me so much?”

i don’t hate you.”

could’ve fooled me.”

she folded her cap of invisibility. “look…we’re just not supposed to get along, okay? our parents are rivals.”

why?”

she sighed. “how many reasons do you want? one time my mom caught poseidon with his girlfriend in athena’s temple, which is hugely disrespectful. Another time, athena and poseidon competed to be the patron god for the city of athens. Your dad created some stupid saltwater spring for his gift. My mom created the olive tree. The people saw that her gift was better, so they named the city after her.”

they must really like olives.”

oh, forget it.”

now, if she’d invented pizza-that I could understand.

We’re staying together,” he promised. “you’re not getting away from me. Never again.

I gave her my deluxe i’ll-kill-you-later stare.

Once she was gone, I knelt next to annabeth and felt her forehead. She was still burning up.
“you’re cute when you’re worried,” she muttered. “your eyebrows get all scrunched together.”
“you are not going to die while I owe you a favor,” I said. “why did you take that knife?”
“you would’ve done the same for me.”
it was true. I guess we both knew it. Still, I felt like somebody was poking my heart with a cold metal rod.

Hercules,huh? percy frowned. “that guy was like the starbucks of ancient greece. Everywhere you turn–there he is.

The sea does not like to be restrained.

If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself.

The meeting was like a war council with donuts. Then again, back at camp half-blood they used to have their most serious discussions around the ping-pong table in the rec room with crackers and cheez whiz, so percy felt right at home.

Down in the water, octavian yelled, “get me out of here! i’ll kill you!”
“tempting,” percy called down.

I could have killed you.”
“or I could have killed you,” percy said.
jason shrugged. “if there’d been an ocean in kansas, maybe.”
“i don’t need an ocean—”
“boys,” annabeth interrupted, “i’m sure you both would’ve been wonderful at killing each other. But right now, you need some rest.”
food first,” percy said. “please?.

Go on with what your heart tells you, or you will lose all.

Hmm…” jason snapped his fingers. “i can call a friend for a ride.”
percy raised his eyebrows. “oh, yeah? me too. Let’s see whose friend gets here first.

Naturally, coach hedge went ballistic; but percy found it hard to take the satyr seriously since he was barely five feet tall.
“never in my life!” coach bellowed, waving his bat and knocking over a plate of apples. “against the rules! irresponsible!”
“coach,” annabeth said, “it was an accident. We were talking, and we fell asleep.”
“besides,” percy said, “you’re starting to sound like terminus.”
hedge narrowed his eyes. “is that an insult, jackson? ’cause i’ll—i’ll terminus you, buddy!.

Leo drummed his fingers. “great. I should have installed a smoke screen that makes the ship smell like a giant chicken nugget. Remind me to invent that, next time.”
hazel frowned. “what is a chicken nugget?”
“oh, man…” leo shook his head in amazement. “that’s right. You’ve missed the last, like, seventy years. Well, my apprentice, a chicken nugget—”
“doesn’t matter,” annabeth interrupted.

The real world is where the monsters are.

And,” annabeth continued, “it reminds me how long we’ve known each other. We were twelve, percy. Can you believe that?”
“no, he admitted. “so…you knew you liked me from that moment?”
she smirked. “i hated you at first. You annoyed me. Then I tolerated you for a few years. Then—”
“okay, fine.”
she leaned in and kissed: him a good, proper kiss without anyone watching—no romans anywhere, no screaming satyr chaperones.
she pulled away. “i missed you, percy.”
percy wanted to tell her the same thing, but it seemed too small a comment. While he had been on the roman side, he’d kept himself alive almost solely by thinking of annabeth. I missed you didn’t really cover that.

He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, no! even if you are half barnyard animal, you’re my best friend and I don’t want you to die!.

Don’t feel bad, i’m usually about to die.

Annabeth gripped the hilt of her dagger. “a bounty on our heads . . . As if we didn’t attract enough monsters already.”
“do we get wanted posters?” leo asked. “and do they have our bounties, like, broken down on a price list?”
hazel wrinkled her nose. “what are you talking about?”
“just wondering how much i’m going for these days,” leo said. “i mean, I can understand not being as pricey as percy or jason, maybe . . . But am I worth, like, two franks, or three franks?.

God alert!” blackjack yelled. “it’s the wine dude!
mr. D sighed in exasperation. “the next person, or horse, who calls me the ‘wine dude’ will end up in a bottle of merlot!.

Once the others were below, hazel and leo faced each other awkwardly. They were alone except for coach hedge, who was back on the quarterdeck singing the pokémon theme song. The coach had changed the words to: gotta kill ’em all, and leo really didn’t want to know why.

This is annabeth,” jason said. “uh, normally she doesn’t judo-flip people.

It’s useless to lecture a human.

It’s okay,” he said. “we’re together.” he didn’t say you’re okay, or we’re alive. After all they’d been through over the last year, he knew that the most important thing was that they were together. She loved him for saying that.