Gateway to the gods Book

[The images of horror [from Everworld me…]. I can feel the pain. I can feel the sick fear.
   It is eating away at real-world April, almost as much as it damages Everworld April. Maybe more. It's the real-world April I want to save. That's my life. That is my real life, and it is being poisoned by an onslaught of fear and rage.
   […] And, too, more subtle, but almost as destructive in their own way, are the seductions of Everworld.
   […] I'm not one of those people who felt at odds with my world. I was comfortable in it. I was happy in it. Mostly. I have a place in the real world. I belong. I am happy belonging.
   But Everworld is more. Brighter, louder, sweeter, and more harsh, stranger, more interesting, more challenging, so insanely dangerous, so terrifying. Just…so.
   The friends I have in the real world are the core of my universe.
   […] The friends I have in Everworld? Well, are David and Christopher and Jalil friends, exactly? - page 12-13

   There was something wrong with David and with Christopher. But then, that's life, isn't it? Any interesting character has flaws, but the flaws and weaknesses, even the twists and sicknesses and evils, that make an interesting role. - page 14

   I don't think [Christopher]'s happy; comics rarely are. He is funny. I know his throwback attitudes come from some weakness in him, some dark, sad place. I mean, racism isn't exactly a symptom of happiness and mental balance, is it?
   To make matters worse, I'm afraid Christopher is either an alcoholic or heading down that path. - page 15-16

   Immortality. Live forever. Unless someone kills you. But no old age, no disease. Too big a thing to think about. Besides, it would only apply to the Everworld me, and I was hoping the Everworld me wouldn't be around long enough to benefit from immortality. - page 21

   "Very funny," Jalil grumped. "I prefer not to think of [the toga] as a dress. I see it as more like a very baggy pair of shorts."
   […] "Boys, you are wearing togas. And not long togas, either. I think we have ourselves a mini-toga look here. You're showing leg. You're showing knee and a few inches of thigh." - page 23

   [After a big godly argument and Ares storming off] "And [the Greek gods] wonder why they're getting their butts kicked by the Hetwan," David said under his breath.
   But not so quietly that Athena failed to notice. "What did you say, mortal?"
   "David, remember me saying, 'Don't piss them off again'?" Christopher moaned.
   "Yeah. You know what? Screw their little temper tantrums. I'm tired of this. This is what comes from having your butt kissed for thousands of years. Reality time for the gods starts right now."
   I think all three of us were proud of David at that moment.
   And all three of us edged slowly away from him. - page 51

   "[…] The Hetwan don't care how brave you are. In fact, if your bravery leads you to do stupid things then the Hetwan are glad you're brave." [David tells the Greek gods] - page 58

   I was getting to be an expert on immortals. […] I was starting to draw some conclusions. They were always touchy. They were always strange. Difficult. Rigid and inflexible. Immoral.
   Or maybe amoral is the right word, although what's the real difference between having no morals and having bad morals? In the end it leaves you doing whatever you want. - page 59-60

   "Davideus," Christopher said, undeterred. "Davideus Levineus. The first J--, um, the first, um… American Greek hero."
   He'd been on the edge of saying the first Jewish Greek hero. He'd stopped himself. He had stopped himself and then collapsed into babble and unfunniness.
   "You know, I'm trying," he muttered. "But politically correct isn't funny."
   David said, "Christopher, it wouldn't bother me you saying I was the first Jewish Greek hero. That's cool. Of course I'm only half Jewish, but that's okay just the same."
   "Well, Jesus, how am I supposed to know what's cool and what's not?" Christopher exploded.
   Jalil said, "How about a rationing system? You get zero the words that really make us want to kick your ass but you can have one 'Hebrew' and one 'brutha,' each pronounced with suitable derision, per day. On special occasions you get a bonus 'brutha.'" - page 61-62

   I pulled my arm away [from David]. I was angry. Not because he'd offered me an out. I was angry because I wanted desperately to take it. I mean, how far was I going to carry my feminism? I'd done plenty. I'd held up my end. - page 86-87

   The strangest feeling. I wished later I could remember the emotion. I wished I could get access to it, repeat it. It was the kind of thing an actress could us.
   But I wasn't thinking about that. Wasn't thinking at all. I'd been in a transport of rage and fury, rushing to kill, drive to outrun my own fear.
   But now something new and terrible rose up within me. Something so dark it was a black hole. Fear was gone. Pain was gone. I was gone, obliterated. No mind, no thought. A machine. A machine running on a power buried so far beneath civilized minds that no longer know it's there. - page 90

   Oh, God, I couldn't get away. Oh, God. [The Hetwan] were going to kill me, like I had killed them. -- page 93 - The tense of this thought and the next one sounds wrong - I think it should be present tense, not this tense.

   Everworld me had flown on the back of a winged horse. And I/she had gone into desperate battle to save… To save what? The gods of Olympus? Those selfish, foolish, shortsighted creatures?
   Or to avenge Ganymede? To simply stop Ka Anor and keep him from his goal. Why? Why had I fought? Why, when I fought, had I so lost myself? - page 99-100

   […] I glanced at the pile of rags I was leaving behind. Tried not to think of what those stains meant. And I tried, too, not to acknowledge how proud I was to have fought and survived. - page 115

   [David said, "Hephaistos]'s cool. Crippled, though. Lame."
   "Shouldn't we say he's 'differently abled'?" Christopher asked in a mocking whisper.
   "Heph calls himself lame, which is good enough for me," David answered. - page 116

   David watched [Senna] in wonder. Not amazed at her, but amazed at some memory. Embarrassed, it seemed to me. And a little angry.
   Was he really free of her enchantment? Maybe. Maybe free of the part that was magic. But beyond the witch's trickery she still had her face, her eyes, her body, and her strange, strong, compelling mind. She still carried the promise of hopeless infatuation.
   She embodied the lost cause, the empty promise of futility and disappointment and frustration that I guess attracts some men. Senna was still the woman of ice who would never, ever be thawed. - page 133-134
   [David finished, "] Pegasus says he's up for it."
   "Why is it that a horse is the most reliable character we've met on Olympus?" Christopher wondered. - page 141

   And we had to cut at the precise same instant. We'd worked out a signal. Christopher would yell, "Cut!" when he made his downward slash.
   On that cue, as fast as we could, Jalil and I would cut. There would be a slight delay as our brains absorbed Christopher's cry and reacted. We could only hope that Jalil and I would delay and respond at almost the identical speed. - page 150

   Of course, I thought. Of course. The obvious answer. The sensible, twenty-first-century-American answer. No God. And no god. It didn't matter that I had called to her, that in that awful moment of terror I had trusted to Athena to save me, but had not trusted my own God.
   Logical, that's all it was. Athena had saved me before. She'd lifted me up out of danger, of course I called to her, of course. That wasn't blasphemy, I wasn't saying she was a true god, I wasn't trading the God I'd prayed to all my life for some seven-foot-tall immortal in a battle helmet. - page 159-160

Steffi Graf - page 34 - comparison to Artemis


Swear count:
Damn (5, 7, 39, 84, 116)
Ass(es) (41, 44, 61, 165)
Damned (74, 121, 161)
Goddammit (88)
Hell (97, 141)
Bitchy/bitching (107, 116) (witch-slapped 131 - because we know what it is supposed to be, though this is a nice, accurate twist on it)

Anyone besides me think they all behave better language-wise when April is narrating, as far as swear words goes? (hide spoiler)]