Rick Riordan Quotes

Mythology does not interest me. Nor does history. But the possible overlap between history and mythology excites me immensely.

The scholars and poets of an earlier time can be read only with a dictionary to help.

Medical research in the twentieth century mostly takes place in the lab; in the Renaissance, though, researchers went first and foremost to the library to see what the ancients had said.

Perhaps not as badly applied and not as obvious, but for thousands of years, people have worn makeup on stage.

There are so many fantastic stories and I want to bring Thor and Odin and the other gods into the modern world, just like I did with the Greeks and 'Percy Jackson.' I'll give the books an urban setting and have young people interacting with the Norse gods.

I love historical references.

To be half-naked for a Greek mythology movie, it's a piece of art. You know, there's nothing vulgar in there.

So much music in Africa was created for specific moments, written for rituals or for a funeral or for challenges, thousands of years ago, and these rhythms are still used.

Himmler wants to send an expedition to Tibet to look for ancient manuscripts on the Aryans. The man is like a little schoolgirl. What culture is there in an old jug, I ask you?

Iliad by Homer is one of the great stories in literature. And I thought its themes really resonated today, whether that was my projection or Homer's intentions. It didn't seem like we had come very far.

The Bible was written two thousand years ago. The world is a different place now. Stories that had meaning then are meaningless now. Beliefs that might have been valid then are invalid now. Those books should be looked at in the same way we look at anything of that age with interest with an acknowledgement of the historical importance but they should not be thought of as anything that has any value.

Go over to Greece with the Iliad and Odyssey. These have elements of history, and they have non-historical elements. It's very difficult to pull them apart. And I think there's not much reason to.

Eros harrows my heart: wild gales sweeping desolate mountains, uprooting oaks.

I think the Bible is completely inspired by God in its overall messages. But, for the people of those days to know what was going to happen 4,000 years later in a world of astronomy or subatomic particles. They didn't have access to the knowledge that we presently have about geology. So, we know now that the world was created many of billions of years ago, 13 or 14 billion years ago. As far as they knew, the earth was the center of the universe. They thought that stars were little twinkling things in the sky where as now we know stars are very distant and much larger than the earth.

But centaurs never existed; there could never be So to speak a double nature in a single body Or a double body composed of incongruous parts With a consequent disparity in the faculties. The stupidest person ought to be convinced of that.

Miserable Orpheus who, turning to lose his Eurydice, beholds her for the first time as well as the last.

The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait.

Every historical moment needs the stories to be told about it.

I'm on the record as saying things like I think it's important for people to understand their Bible stories, not because I'm an advocate of religion - clearly, I'm not - but once again, what comes from the Bible has formed such an important part of our culture.

Why make a biopic if it's not somehow helping us now? There's really no point. If it's not informing how we can do things differently now and maybe not repeat our mistakes, than why do this piece about this person or this event?

When I traveled through Greece in the '90s, everything [Albert Hoxie] taught me came flooding back and I was able to appreciate the art and culture much more because of him.

Raise high the roof-beam, carpenters. Like Ares comes the bridegroom, taller far than a tall man.

All ancient history was written with a moral object; the ethical interest predominates almost to the exclusion of all others.

The Vedic literature opens to us a chapter in what has been called the education of the human race to which we can find no parallel anywhere else.

Hi, this is Ganymede, cup-bearer to Zeus, and when I'm out buying wine for the Lord of the Skies, I always buckle up!