Asphodel Quotes

“The main thing about ghosts – most of them have lost their voices. In Asphodel, millions of them wander around aimlessly, trying to remember who they were. You know why they end up like that? Because in life they never took a stand one way or another. They never spoke out, so they were never heard. Your voice is your identity. If you don’t use it,’ Nico said with a shrug, ‘you’re halfway to Asphodel already.’
…
He hated when his own advice applied to himself.”
― Rick Riordan, The Blood of Olympus

“I had buried my romance in a bed of asphodel.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Within a Hell of godless emptiness
submit yourself ever more to sleep's spell.
All is a dream, all is nothingness:
the flower of the world is the asphodel.”
― Gabriele D'Annunzio, Poema paradisiaco

“Presi in disparte Ryan, sistemandogli la cravatta per non dare nell’occhio. «Fammi un favore. Resta qui e, quando mi girerò verso di te, fissami nella maniera più tenebrosa e scocciata che puoi».
«Tenebrosa?».
«Sì, beh… hai presente, no?».
«No».
Gli riassestai il bavero del cappotto, cercando una definizione che non scadesse nel solito stereotipo. «Guardami come se fossi un vampiro cattivo».
Ryan si lasciò scappare una risata monosillabica alla Al Pacino. «Tu vuoi lo sguardo di un voivoda, e io non lo sono mai stato».
«Improvvisa».
Il vampiro piegò il capo in un gesto d’intesa. «Sei tu la stratega, Elizabeth».
Masticò il mio appellativo, spolpandolo fino a raschiarne il nocciolo. Com’è che si dice? Se vuoi qualcosa, o qualcuno, prima devi far tuo il suo nome. Quel millenario, nel più assurdo dei momenti, e nel più sbagliato dei luoghi, aveva fatto l’amore con tutte e nove le lettere del mio.”
― Giorgia Penzo, Asphodel

“In vain you beg, in vain you ache,
in vain you’ve opened your wrecked heart wide.
Perhaps in heaven the rainclouds quake
because we both have cried?

This pain of ours is without a wing.
The fainthearted cry can never fly.
Weep and pray! What god is coming
by the path of the stars up high?

Abandon yourself to the dust
and upon it fall in surrender.
Our great mother is ever so just
to every sinner who kisses her.

Within a Hell of godless emptiness
submit yourself ever more to sleep’s spell.
All is a dream, all is nothingness:
the flower of the world is the asphodel.

(Trans. Michael Shindler)”
― Gabriele D'Annunzio

“The first flicker of dawn licked the eastern sky. The light grew stronger, revealing that the white larkspur had turned dark crimson overnight. Within her shrine, a new and beautiful light gray flower sprang from the ground, surrounding her.
Asphodel.

Kore touched the gentle flowers growing around her and shifted the coloring of her dress to a soft white, mimicking the color of the blossoms. How beautiful they were... like last night, like him, though she knew 'beautiful' was seldom applied to men, and was too soft a word for him anyway.
Asphodel... she was the Maiden of the Flowers and knew that's what these were intuitively, but tried to remember where she had heard that name- and what their significance was.
She had only ever seen asphodel as a gnarled dark gray weed. It was one of the few plants her mother would rip out of the fields wherever she had seen it. Kore had always trailed behind her, doing the same. She had never seen asphodel bud and and blossom. The white blooms were thin, veined with a centerline of crimson, six petals with bright filaments bursting from the center and ending in deep red anthers. They were beautiful and foreign.”
― Rachel Alexander, Receiver of Many