“But she wondered why beautiful things had to be wrapped up with evil history. Or was it the other way around? Maybe the evil history made it necessary to build beautiful things, to mask the darker aspects.”

—  Rick Riordan , The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "But she wondered why beautiful things had to be wrapped up with evil history. Or was it the other way around? Maybe the…" by Rick Riordan?
Rick Riordan photo
Rick Riordan 1402
American writer 1964

Related quotes

Stephen King photo

“They were still all beautiful and there was still enchantment and wonder, but she had crossed a line and now the fairy tale was green with corruption and evil.”

Stephen King book Carrie

Source: Carrie

Ian McDonald photo

“Legends should stay legends; otherwise they just become history, when the natural course of things is the other way around, from history to legend.”

Ian McDonald book The Dervish House

Source: The Dervish House (2010), Ch. 3, §5 (p. 109)

Cassandra Clare photo

“He leaned against the door frame, ignoring the kick of adrenaline the sight of her produced. He wondered why, not for the first time. Isabelle used her beauty like she used her whip, but Clary didn't know she was beautiful at all. Maybe that was why.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Rachel Carson photo

“It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility.”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

Source: The Sense of Wonder

Elizabeth Kostova photo

“As you know, human history is full of evil deeds, and maybe we ought to think of them with tears, not fascination.”

Elizabeth Kostova book The Historian

Source: The Historian

Rick Riordan photo

“The cafe windows wrapped all the way around the observation floor, which gave us a beautiful panoramic view of the skeleton army that had come to kill us.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

John Gray photo

“For Leopardi evil is integral to the way the world works; but when he talks of evil he does not mean any kind of malign agency of the sort that Gnostics imagined. Evil is the suffering that is built into the scheme of things. ‘What hope is there when evil is ordinary?’ he asks. ‘I mean, in an order where evil is necessary?’ These rhetorical questions show why Leopardi had no interest in projects of revolution and reform. No type of human action – least of all the harlequinade of politics – could fundamentally alter a world in which evil was ordinary.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

The Faith of Puppets: Leopardi and the Souls of Machines (p.35-6)
The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Enquiry into Human Freedom (2015)

Ezra Pound photo

“Here is the core of evil, the burning hell without let-up,
The canker corrupting all things, Fafnir the worm,
Syphilis of the State, of all kingdoms
Wart of the common-weal,
Wenn-maker, corrupter of all things
Darkness the defiler
Twin evil of envy,
Snake of the seven heads, Hydra, entering all things
Passing the doors of temples defiling the grove of Paphos,
neschek, the crawling evil,
slime, the corrupter of all things,
Poisoner of the fount,
of all fountains, neschek,
The serpent, evil against Nature's increase,
Against beauty”

Ezra Pound (1885–1972) American Imagist poet and critic

Addendum for C
neschek is a transliteration of the Hebrew "נֶשֶׁך" meaning "usury"
Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX-CXVII

Terry Pratchett photo

“She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Bernard Cornwell photo

“Sharpe's sword was lucky. There was a soldier's goddess and her name was Fate and she had liked the sword Harper made for Sharpe. The Kligenthal was stained with the blood of friends, with the torture of flayed priests, and the beautiful sword contained not luck, but evil.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Narrator, p. 312
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

Related topics