"I used to watch them as a kid. My granny told me about 'em. Some cold nights you see them dancin' in the sky over the Hub, burnin' green and gold..." "Oh, you mean the aurora coriolis," said Oats, trying to make his voice sound matter of fact. "But actually that's caused by magic particles hitting the-" "Dunno what it's caused by," said Granny sharply, "but what it is is the phoenix dancin'."

"Most beings spring from other individuals; but there is a certain kind which reproduces itself. The Assyrians call it the Phoenix. It does not live on fruit or flowers, but on frankincense and odoriferous gums. When it has lived five hundred years, it builds itself a nest in the branches of an oak, or on the top of a palm tree. In this it collects cinnamon, and spikenard, and myrrh, and of these materials builds a pile on which it deposits itself, and dying, breathes out its last breath amidst odors. From the body of the parent bird a young Phoenix issues forth, destined to live a life as long as its predecessor. When this has grown up and gathered sufficient strength, it lifts its nest from the tree (its own cradle and its parent’s sepulcher), and carries it to the city of Heliopolis in Egypt, and deposits it in the temple of the Sun."

"My mom was a phoenix who always expected to rise again from the ashes of her latest disaster. And in spite of her self-doubts, she had a very strong sense of who she was. She had a sense of self-worth. She loved being Judy Garland. Did she secretly long to be Frances Gumm Somebody, Minnesota housewife? Are you kidding? She'd have run off with a vaudeville troupe just the way my grandfather did."

"Hurry! We burn For Rome’s so near us, for the phoenix moment When we have thrown off this traveller’s trance And mother-naked and ageless-ancient Wake in her warm nest of renaissance."

"Do not expect again a phoenix hour, The triple-towered sky, the dove complaining, Sudden the rain of gold and heart's first ease Traced under trees by the eldritch light of sundown."

"A chattering crow lives out nine generations of aged men, but a stag's life is four time a crow's, and a raven's life makes three stags old, while the phoenix outlives nine ravens, but we, the rich-haired Nymphs daughters of Zeus the aegis-holder, outlive ten phoenixes."

"There is another holy bird, called the Phoenix, which I have never seen but in pictures. He rarely appears in Egypt — only once in every 500 years, so they say, in Heliopolis — and he is supposed to come when his father dies. If the painter describes him truly, his plumage is part golden and part red, and he is very like an eagle in shape and size. They say that this bird comes from Arabia, bringing the body of his father embalmed in myrrh to the temple of the sun, and there he buries him. First he molds an egg of myrrh; then he puts his father in the middle of it. Lastly, he covers up the body with myrrh. This is what they say this bird does. But I do not believe them."

"The facts in my head, they're so jumbled up … I don't know anymore what's real and what isn't — what actually happened … what's a lie. But it doesn't matter. Because the clutter doesn't affect my emotional realities — perhaps, in turn, because the Phoenix by nature responds better to feelings than rationality. I know who I am — who I care for, who I don't — that's what matters. The rest I can take or leave."

"In the sunrise … the Phoenix effect!?! Now what the heck does that mean: freaky after-image of a very freak dream … or harbinger of something worse?"

"The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise."

"And I said, I will perish with my nest, and I will multiply days as the phoenix. (Hebrew: chol)."

"Ask me no more if east or west The Phoenix builds her spicy nest; For unto you at last she flies, And in your fragrant bosom dies."

"When fame's loud trump hath blown its noblest blast, Though long the sound, the echo sleeps at last; And glory, like the phoenix midst her fires, Exhales her odours, blazes, and expires."

"First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance, The scourge of England and the boast of France! Though burnt by wicked Bedford for a witch, Behold her statue plac'd in glory's niche; Her fetters burst, and just releas'd from prison, A virgin phoenix from her ashes risen."

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix."

"The only thing left inside the jar was Hope."

"When Pandora opened the jar, all the evil flooded out into the world."

"Φοβού τους Δαναούς και δώρα φέροντες."

"The Ethiop gods have Ethiop lips, Bronze cheeks, and woolly hair; The Grecian gods are like the Greeks, As keen-eyed, cold and fair."

"No fable made famous by the Greeks is to be neglected."

"Pygmalion loathing their lascivious life, Abhorr'd all womankind, but most a wife: So single chose to live, and shunn'd to wed, Well pleas'd to want a consort of his bed. Yet fearing idleness, the nurse of ill, In sculpture exercis'd his happy skill; And carv'd in iv'ry such a maid, so fair, As Nature could not with his art compare, Were she to work; but in her own defence Must take her pattern here, and copy hence. Pleas'd with his idol, he commends, admires, Adores; and last, the thing ador'd, desires. A very virgin in her face was seen, And had she mov'd, a living maid had been: One wou'd have thought she cou'd have stirr'd, but strove With modesty, and was asham'd to move. Art hid with art, so well perform'd the cheat, It caught the carver with his own deceit: He knows 'tis madness, yet he must adore, And still the more he knows it, loves the more: The flesh, or what so seems, he touches oft, Which feels so smooth, that he believes it soft. Fir'd with this thought, at once he strain'd the breast, And on the lips a burning kiss impress'd. 'Tis true, the harden'd breast resists the gripe, And the cold lips return a kiss unripe: But when, retiring back, he look'd again, To think it iv'ry, was a thought too mean: So wou'd believe she kiss'd, and courting more, Again embrac'd her naked body o'er."

"Aphrodite rose from the waves"

"The phoenix rises from the ashes"

"A Sisyphean Task."

"The Greeks used a wooden horse to get into Troy."

"The Twelve Tasks of Heracles."

"Icarus flew too close to the sun."

"Flora and Fauna"

"King Minos built a labyrinth to house the monster."

"Everything King Midas touched turned to gold."