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Icarus Quotes

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Icarus Quotes

“Here is what they don’t tell you: Icarus laughed as he fell. Threw his head back and yelled into the winds, arms spread wide, teeth bared to the world. (There is a bitter triumph in crashing when you should be soaring.) The wax scorched his skin, ran blazing trails down his back, his thighs, his ankles, his feet. Feathers floated like prayers past his fingers, close enough to snatch back. Death breathed burning kisses against his shoulders, where the wings joined the harness. The sun painted everything in shades of gold. (There is a certain beauty in setting the world on fire and watching from the centre of the flames.)”

FailureTriumphLaughIcarus
Author:Fiona
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“Drew was focused on a hundred details at once: like the fact that her hand had dropped to his, and that her body was pressed up against his side; that her fingers were warm in the cool night air, and that her skin looked silver in the moonlight. Drew’s gaze flickered up. The bruise on Tess’s jaw was gone, her blue eyes dark and entrancing. “So are you going to do it?” she asked. Drew frowned. “Do what?” “Jesus, Drew,” she said with a nervous laugh. “You gonna kiss me or not?” His hands slid around her waist, pulling her against him. Tess’s eyes widened, lips parting. “Yeah,” Drew whispered. “I am...”

LoveRomanceKissIcarusTessDrew
Book:Icarus
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“She was tall and wiry, a dark smudge - a bruise or dirt - marring the light, inner surface of her forearm. Piercings dotted the shells of her ears, a tattoo peeking out from under her waistband. Drew’s breath caught and held as she turned and her face came into view. She was beautiful in the way that bonfires were - mesmerizing and more than a little dangerous - brilliant rather than pretty. Like those flames, she drew him forward.”

YaTeen FictionTeenFamily DramaIcarusTessDanika Stone
Book:Icarus
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“AJ knew he should stop the fight. Still, the sight of a little girl - no younger than himself, though smaller - pounding on the commander’s bully of a son made him pause. He watched in open-mouthed admiration as her fists rained down on Holden’s face. This fleshy boy transforming into a snotty-nosed, crying lump of flesh was the same one who’d bloodied AJ’s nose a week ago. She’s taking him, AJ realized.”

ChildhoodYaFightIcarusDanika StoneTeen DramaFistfight
Author:Danika Stone
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“He unfolded his lanky frame and stood up on his bed, pulling the basement window open, followed by the screen. Two long legs in faded jeans were crouched down beside the faded flowerbed, knees pressed into the damp dirt. He shivered as the chill autumn air filled the bedroom. With the window open, the sound of late-night insects chirping in the distance joined the noises of the house. “Tess?” he asked, craning his neck to peer upward. “Everything alright?” She was backlit by the streetlight, her hair a halo of gold-framed blue. She gave an angry shake of her head. “Can I come in, Kyle?”

LoveFriendshipAbuseYoung AdultYaIcarusTessDanika StoneKyleFamilly Drama
Book:Icarus
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“Do I, then, belong to the heavens? Why, if not so, should the heavens Fix me thus with their ceaseless blue stare, Luring me on, and my mind, higher Ever higher, up into the sky, Drawing me ceaselessly up To heights far, far above the human? Why, when balance has been strictly studied And flight calculated with the best of reason Till no aberrant element should, by rights, remain- Why, still, should the lust for ascension Seem, in itself, so close to madness? Nothing is that can satify me; Earthly novelty is too soon dulled; I am drawn higher and higher, more unstable, Closer and closer to the sun's effulgence. Why do these rays of reason destroy me? Villages below and meandering streams Grow tolerable as our distance grows. Why do they plead, approve, lure me With promise that I may love the human If only it is seen, thus, from afar- Although the goal could never have been love, Nor, had it been, could I ever have Belonged to the heavens? I have not envied the bird its freedom Nor have I longed for the ease of Nature, Driven by naught save this strange yearning For the higher, and the closer, to plunge myself Into the deep sky's blue, so contrary To all organic joys, so far From pleasures of superiority But higher, and higher, Dazzled, perhaps, by the dizzy incandescence Of waxen wings. Or do I then Belong, after all, to the earth? Why, if not so, should the earth Show such swiftness to encompass my fall? Granting no space to think or feel, Why did the soft, indolent earth thus Greet me with the shock of steel plate? Did the soft earth thus turn to steel Only to show me my own softness? That Nature might bring home to me That to fall, not to fly, is in the order of things, More natural by far than that improbable passion? Is the blue of the sky then a dream? Was it devised by the earth, to which I belonged, On account of the fleeting, white-hot intoxication Achieved for a moment by waxen wings? And did the heavens abet the plan to punish me? To punish me for not believing in myself Or for believing too much; Too earger to know where lay my allegiance Or vainly assuming that already I knew all; For wanting to fly off To the unknown Or the known: Both of them a single, blue speck of an idea?”

PoemIcarus
Book:Sun & Steel
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“In the end, my own works, my own abilities, my own goodness were like the wax wings of Icarus - in the end, they were insufficient. Despite all my efforts to do good, despite all my struggle, despite our every attempt to try and be good without God, we fall short. We fall, and it is in that moment of failure, in that moment where our wax wings are burning and falling away that we realise the great trap of evil. It is in that moment that we realise the sting of sin. Sin whispers in our ear, tells us that all we will ever need is ourselves. It tells us that we are all-sufficient. Yet even this will not be fulfilled in the end. Sin tells us to serve ourselves, but it cannot save us.”

ReligionFaithJesusSinChristianityFailureMythIcarus
Book:More than Answers
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“He moved on from Anatole France to the eighteenth-century philosophers, though not to Rousseau. Perhaps this was because one side of him - the side easily moved by passion - was too close to Rousseau. Instead, he approached the author of 'Candide', who was closer to another side of him - the cool and richly intellectual side. At twenty-nine, life no longer held any brightness for him, but Voltaire supplied him with man-made wings. Spreading these man-made wings, he soared with ease into the sky. The higher he flew, the farther below him sank the joys and sorrows of a life bathed in the light of intellect. Dropping ironies and smiles upon the shabby towns below, he climbed through the open sky, straight for the sun - as if he had forgotten about that ancient Greek who plunged to his death in the ocean when his man-made wings were singed by the sun.”

IcarusWings To FlyVoltaireRousseau
Author:Ryunosuke Akutagawa
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“Though Eros and Psyche sat vast and magnificent in the front lawn, a prologue to the grand house itself, there was something wonderful- a mysterious and melancholic aspect- about the smaller fountain, hidden within its sunny clearing at the bottom of the south garden. The circular pool of stacked stone stood two feet high and twenty feet across at its widest point. It was lined with tiny glass tiles, azure blue like the necklace of sapphires Lord Ashbury had brought back for Lady Violet after serving in the Far East. From the center emerged a huge craggy block of russet marble, the height of two men, thick at the base but tapering to a peak. Midway up, creamy marble against the brown, the life-size figure of Icarus had been carved in a position of recline. His wings, pale marble etched to give the impression of feathers, were strapped to his outspread arms and fell behind, weeping over the rock. Rising from the pool to tend the fallen figure were three mermaids, long hair looped and coiled about angelic faces: one held a small harp, one wore a coronet of woven ivy leaves, and one reached beneath Icarus’s torso, white hands on creamy skin, to pull him from the deep.”

FountainStatuesMermaidsIcarusEros And PsycheMarble Statues
Book:The House at Riverton
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“Floris lachte en zeeg in slaap in zijn zetel. Pieter bezag het hoofd van de kunstenaar. Hij streelde hem stillekens over zijn roze gezicht, en prevelde vol medelijden: ‘Arme Baskonter, arme paddestoel, die teert op Michelangelo; arme Icarus, die met wassen vleugelen ten hemel stijgt, naar de zon, die ze smelt’ – op een rijnse prent had hij die ongelukkige sukkeleer getekend – ‘en al die renaissancisten zijn van dezelfde deeg! Waarom blijft ge niet beneden : de wereld is zo schoon!’ … En in zijn verbeelding zag hij de schone straat van Messina weer levendig voor d’ogen; en daar beneden, in ’t water, te midden van de pracht, zag hij, hulpeloos en klein, twee roze beentjes spartelen van de arme Icarus die in ’t water gevallen was! Hij schudde de komende vaak van zijn huid, stond op en ging de kriekende, frisse morgen in. Een nieuwe schilderij begon te groeien.”

IcarusSchilderkunstPieter Bruegel
Book:Pieter Bruegel, zoo heb ik u uit uw werken geroken
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“In Brueghel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster, the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green water, And the expensive ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.”

MayImportantTurnsFallWaterWhiteBoysSunHeardSkyCryGreenLegsDisappearDisasterShipsInstanceExpensiveForsakenIcarus
Book:Canción de cuna y otros poemas
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“Laments of an Icarus The paramours of courtesans Are well and satisfied, content. But as for me my limbs are rent Because I clasped the clouds as mine. I owe it to the peerless stars Which flame in the remotest sky That I see only with spent eyes Remembered suns I knew before. In vain I had at heart to find The center and the end of space. Beneath some burning, unknown gaze I feel my very wings unpinned And, burned because I beauty loved, I shall not know the highest bliss, And give my name to the abyss Which waits to claim me as its own.”

KnowsGivingFeelsWellsHeartEndsEyeNamesStarsWaitingSpaceSunSkyMinesHighestClaimsWingsCloudsSatisfiedBurningVainRememberedFlamesBlissBurnedAbyssLimbsLamentIcarusCourtesans
Author:Charles Baudelaire
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