Quotes & Sayings About The Underworld

Apparently, dancing for him and throwing herself at him weren't enough. Apparently, she had to nearly commit murder to arouse him enough to attack her. — Gena Showalter

The other side of the "sacred" is the sight of your beloved in the underworld, dripping with maggots. — Gary Snyder

The experts are right, he thought. Venice is sinking. The whole city is slowly dying. One day the tourists will travel here by boat to peer down into the waters, and they will see pillars and columns and marble far, far beneath them, slime and mud uncovering for brief moments a lost underworld of stone. Their heels made a ringing sound on the pavement and the rain splashed from the gutterings above. A fine ending to an evening that had started with brave hope, with innocence. ("Don't Look Now") — Daphne Du Maurier

It's strictly coincidental that Pluto of course was named for the god of the underworld and we're describing these Halloween moons — Alan Stern

Dying isn't the only way into the Underworld, but it's the safest.
Well, that sounded like an oxymoron if I'd ever heard one. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

There was something so best-musical-ever when people screamed and begged for mercy, and she could listen to a good musical all day. — Gena Showalter

-I gave you your life.
-You gave me chains.
-I thought you would have learned by now after all these years; you cannot have one without the other. — Patrick Tatopoulos

A generic vampire tale in the Underworld vein that comes closer to the infamous Van Helsing than a memorable re-interpretation of a legendary monster. — James Berardinelli

Where the underworld can meet the elite, Forty-Second Street. — Al Dubin

Hades, Hera, and Hestia!" Flynn curses, pointing up.
"What in the Underworld is that?"
"A She-Dragon." Everyone turns to me, and as much as I love having four handsome men gape at me in stupefaction, right now, I could do without. — Amanda Bouchet

When Compasia took pity on me, she reached down into the Underworld, touched the shoulder of Moritas, and asked her forgiveness. Then Compasia took my sister in her arms and placed her in the sky, where she, too, turned to stardust.
Magiano looks at me, his eyes wide. It seems as if he already, somehow, understands.
"My goddess made me a promise," I whisper.
Only now do I realize that I have never seen him cry before.
In the stories, Compasia and her human lover would descend each night from the stars to walk the mortal world, before vanishing with the dawn. So, together, we stare at the sky, waiting. — Marie Lu

Of course I didn't think I'd heard him correctly. Why would he have told me something so important now, so casually, in the middle of a street fair?
Before I could stop myself, I blurted out the first thing I thought.
"Just one?"
The look he gave me was shattering.
Given everything I knew about him, though, I'd expected him to have killed a man.
It was the fact that his having taken a single life had resulted in his banishment to the Underworld for all eternity that I found so astonishing.
"I had no idea," he said, with a dry smile, "that you were so bloodthirsty, Pierce. Should we try to find you one of those pirate costumes? — Meg Cabot

Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality. But, there is, unseen by most, an Underworld, a place that is just as real, but not as brightly lit, a Dark side. The Dark Side is always there, waiting for us to enter, waiting to enter us. Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight! — Various

He was done talking. Aiden came off the wall so fast the water reacted in a frenzy of bubbling. He - we - were in a frenzy. His arms crushed me to him, his mouth demanding, saying those three little words over and over again without speaking them. Aiden lifted me up, one hand burying deep in my hair, the other pressing into my lower back, fitting us together. He turned and my back was against the edge and he was everywhere all at once, stealing my breath, my heart, my soul. There was no coming up for air, no control or limits. There was no tottering on the edge. We both fell headfirst. In his arms, in the way the water bubbled and moved with our bodies, I may've lost track of time, but I gained a little part of me. I gained a part of him that U would hold close for the rest of my days, no matter how long or short that turned out to be. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

We're going to the Underworld," Izzy said. She bounced a little as she said it, her eyes bright and her tone implying that "the Underworld" was akin to "Candy Land. — Rachel Hawkins

What is the subject matter of this apparently very personal world? It has been suggested that these shapes and images are underworld characters, the inhabitants of the vast common realm of memories that have gone down below the level of conscious control. It may be they are. The degree of emotional involvement and the amount of free association with the material being photographed would point in that direction. — Aaron Siskind

The Dark Angel had seen much over the course of the past millennia, the passing of hundreds of thousands of mortal lives. He felt neither remorse nor mercy for the enemies he had felled in the course of wars and battles. He did what he had to do and believed that the people of Earth did not deserve all the good things they had received. For him, most people were harmful parasites who, in the process of their brief mortal lives, tried to get ahead by climbing over each other and destroying their own homes. He looked down on them and their love of material things. He believed that the star of humankind was waning, and that its brief stay on Earth would serve, at most, to swell the ranks of slaves in the underworld, where eventually darkness would eat them away. — A.O. Esther

Hermes visited him in the Underworld a few days before the spring equinox festival, cajoling Hades to come to it.
Hades wandered across the fields with him, Kerberos limping along at his side. "No one wants the god of death at their fertility festival."
"Sure they do. I've heard plenty of girls sighing over your tasty darkness."
"Tasty darkness. Really. — Molly Ringle

We are never done, then, with conscience. Make up your mind what to do with it, Brutus; make up your mind what to do with it, Cato. It is without end, being God. We throw into this bottomless pit a lifetime of labor, we throw into it our fortune, we throw into it our success, we throw into it our liberty or our country, we throw into it our well-being, we throw into it our repose, we throw into it our joy. More! More! More! Empty the vessel! Tip out the urn! We are forced in the end to throw in our hearts. Somewhere in the mists of the old underworld there is a barrel like that. — Victor Hugo

She shoved to her feet. What the hell is that scroll? Some sort of Aegis romance novel? Underworld erotica? Screw you all. — Larissa Ione

A freezing cold underground river. A dark cave lit by ghosts. A man too stupid to realize you loved him. This is what you want?"
"All of it. Especially the very stupid man. — Molly Ringle

When I met Thanatos," [Hazel] said, "you know ... Death ... he told me I wasn't on your list of rogue spirits to capture. He said maybe that's why you were keeping your distance. If you acknowledged me, you'd have to take me back to the Underworld."
Pluto waited. "What is your question?"
"You're here. Why don't you take me to the Underworld. Return me to the dead?"
Pluto's form started to fade. He smiled, but Hazel couldn't tell if he was sad or pleased. "Perhaps that is not what I want to see, Hazel. Perhaps I was never here." (226) — Rick Riordan

Five different rivers flowed into the Underworld, — Rick Riordan

For a moment, Strider almost forgot how pissed he was with Amun and Haidee as he savored the fact that he'd just cock-blocked the keeper of Death. Almost. — Gena Showalter

I love New York. You can pop out of the Underworld in Central Park, hail a taxi, head down Fifth Avenue with a giant hellhound loping along behind you and nobody even looks at you funny. — Rick Riordan

Do you know my dog's name?
[ ... ]
"It is from an ancient word, kerberos. It means 'spotted.'"
I blinked. "You're a genuine Greek god. You're the Lord of the Underworld. And ... you named your dog *Spot*? — Jim Butcher

I am about to bring you into the underworld, Persephone. Can you be brave? — Sylvain Reynard

Before you descend into the Underworld, you must go to Santa Monica. — Rick Riordan

When they'd gone the old man turned around to watch the sun's slow descent. The Boat of Millions of Years, he thought; the boat of the dying sungod Ra, tacking down the western sky to the source of the dark river that runs through the underworld from west to east, through the twelve hours of the night, at the far eastern end of which the boat will tomorrow reappear, bearing a once again youthful, newly reignited sun.
Or, he thought bitterly, removed from us by a distance the universe shouldn't even be able to encompass, it's a vast motionless globe of burning gas, around which this little ball of a planet rolls like a pellet of dung propelled by a kephera beetle.
Take your pick, he told himself as he started slowly down the hill ... But be willing to die for your choice. — Tim Powers

Everyone has his food, and his time of life is reckoned.Their tongues are separate in speech,And their natures as well;Their skins are distinguished,As thou distinguishest the foreign peoples.Thou makest a Nile in the underworld,Thou bringest forth as thou desirestTo maintain the peopleAccording as thou madest them for thyself,The lord of all of them, wearying with them,The lord of every land, rising for them,The Aton of the day, great of majesty. — Akhenaton

I didn't share her concern. Damn it. I should have banished you the first time I saw you. I don't have time for this, not with everything else. You should be in the Underworld by now. Kiyo isn't going to kill me. — Richelle Mead

Anya jumped in front of the man, acting as his shield. Now, Sabin. He didn't mean any harm. He's borderline stupid. You know that. — Gena Showalter

You can call me Boss though, seeing as though you're only the assistant. — Con Template

You know, in Fairyland-Above they said that the underworld was full of devils and dragons. But it isn't so at all! Folk are just folk, wherever you go, and it's only a nasty sort of person who thinks a body's a devil just because they come from another country and have different notions. It's wild and quick and bold down here, but I like wild things and quick things and bold things, too. — Catherynne M Valente

If you pledge yourself to the Inquisition, to me, and swear to use your powers and your knowledge to send malfettos back to the Underworld, I will give you everything you've ever wanted. I can grant your every desire. Money? Power? Respect? Done." He smiles. "You can redeem yourself, change from an abomination in the gods' eyes to a savior. You can help me fix this world. Wouldn't it be nice, not having to run anymore?" He pauses, and for a moment, a note of real, painful tragedy enters his voice. "We are not supposed to exist, Adelina. We were never meant to be." We are mistakes. — Marie Lu

John," I murmured, rising from the bed and going to stand by the table, staring down in astonishment at the gold-rimmed china plates and intricately embroidered napkins in sapphire rings. "How did all of this get here?"
"Oh," he said casually. "It just does. Coffee?" He lifted a gleaming silver pot. "Or do I seem to remember you being more partial to tea?" His grin was wicked.
I gave him a sarcastic look-it was a cup of tea I'd thrown into his face to escape from the Underworld the last time-then sank down into the chair where the bird was perched. — Meg Cabot

If Satan has toeholds that allow him to claw and climb from the underworld to this one, they lie in our failure to see ourselves in others. — Lisa Wingate

If only Paris and the Harpies had gotten along. But Promiscuity had taken one look at the beautiful women and deemed them too much effort. — Gena Showalter

Yes, the world was very strange. But you had to walk through. That was the trick. You had to keep walking through, always, with your chin held high, the way she had passed through the tunnels of the underworld, with only the dim light of the lumpen to guide her. That was the other trick, the other truth: Light would come to you from unexpected places. — Lauren Oliver

Each of us has his own way of emerging from the underworld, mine is by writing. That's why the only way I can keep going, if at all, is by writing, not through rest and sleep. I am far more likely to achieve peace of mind through writing than the capacity to write through peace. — Franz Kafka

I like to be admired from afar, and then complimented up close. — Gena Showalter

You are not Kaia the Disappointment. Do you hear me? That's what I was trying to tell you earlier. You are Kaia the Mighty. How many Harpies out there do you think could have brought down the most badass Lord of the Underworld? The same Lord who also happens to be the strongest, sexiest and smartest. And by the way, in case there's any doubt, I'm describing me. — Gena Showalter

The native music of North America, the original-roots music of this country, is also the underworld music of this country. — Robbie Robertson

The vampire underworld is much larger than most people could imagine. It exists in all the cities mentioned in the book, but also in many, many more. Teenagers, especially, seem to like to act out vampire fantasies. — James Patterson

What the myth founds is a double existence between the upper world and the underworld: a dimension of death is introduced into life, and a dimension of life is introduced into death. — Walter Burkert

Now every mortal has pain
and sweat is constant,
but if there is anything dearer than being alive,
it's dark to me.
We humans seem disastrously in love with this thing
(whatever it is) that glitters on the earth
we call it life. We know no other.
The underworld's a blank
and all the rest just fantasy. — Anne Carson

Central Wyoming was like hell without the flames, an underworld thrust up onto the surface. — Walter Kirn

You wanted to drown in a woman. Here's your chance. Drown in her blood"
~Violence(Maddox) — Gena Showalter

It takes all sorts of people to make the underworld. — Don Marquis

There's no a lot of laughs in an underworld. This one used to be called Limbo, ya ken, 'cause the door was verra low. — Terry Pratchett

Were I not married to the director, I'm not sure I'd know anything about the 'Underworld' sequel. — Kate Beckinsale

After my victory at the Warriors 1, the self-proclaimed and well named Monarch of the Underworld, Dave Courtney, came up to me and commended me when he said, 'Richy, you can hit, I'm fucking glad you're not hitting me.' The way Dave said it and the expression on his face made me laugh. — Stephen Richards

In idyllic small towns I sometimes see teenagers looking out of place in their garb of desperation, the leftover tatters and stains and slashes of the fashion of my youth. For this phase of their life, the underworld is their true home, and in the grit and underbelly of a city they could find something that approximates it. Even the internal clock of adolescents changes, making them nocturnal creatures for at least a few years. All through childhood you grow toward life and then in adolescence, at the height of life, you begin to grow toward death. This fatality is felt as an enlargement to be welcomed and embraced, for the young in this culture enter adulthood as a prison, and death reassures them that there are exits. "I have been half in love with easeful death," said Keats who died at twenty-six and so were we, though the death we were in love with was only an idea then. — Rebecca Solnit

Enzo looks up at me. Suddenly, the blackness in his eyes seems to fade, replaced by the familiar warm brown of his irises, the red slashes, the glow of life. I see a hint of his old self there, fighting through the darkness of the Underworld to gaze at me one last time. It is the look he'd given me when we used to dance.
This is the real Enzo.
"Let me go," he whispers. It is his voice. It is the voice that once comforted me, gave me strength. And as I try to take in his words, the final tendrils of the tether linking us unravel from around my heart, freeing me. — Marie Lu

Down the dank mouldering paths and past the Ocean's streams they went
and past the White Rock and the Sun's Western Gates and past
the Land of Dreams, and soon they reached the fields of asphodel
where the dead, the burnt-out wraiths of mortals make their home — Homer

The underworld, the old world, is the womb that gave birth to humanity. The journey from under the earth is the journey from ignorance to wisdom. — Carrie Vaughn

A woman's body is the gate to this life. A man's body is the gate to the next life. — Louise Erdrich

The Klamath tribe of Native Americans who witnessed the eruption believed it was a fierce battle between Llao, the spirit of the underworld, and Skell, the spirit of the sky. — Cheryl Strayed

Significantly, it was Disraeli who said, "What is a crime among the multitude is only a vice among the few" - perhaps the most profound insight into the very principle by which the slow and insidious decline of nineteenth-century society into the depth of mob and underworld morality took place. Since he knew this rule, he knew also that Jews would have no better chances anywhere than in circles which pretended to be exclusive and to discriminate against them; for inasmuch as these circles of the few, together with the multitude, thought of Jewishness as a crime, this "crime" could be transformed at any moment into an attractive "vice." Disraeli's display of eroticism, strangeness, mysteriousness, magic, and power drawn from secret sources, was aimed correctly at this disposition in society. — Hannah Arendt

Tell me, Choi Yoori ... are your lips as soft as they look? — Con Template

What would you pack for Armageddon? Sunscreen and shades? Flame-proof underwear? Maybe a travel guide to the Underworld? — Jana Oliver

I'll believe that when the Underworld freezes over and Centaurs fly. — Amanda Bouchet

Paris answered for him. "Last time he spread the flashing love, Reyes threw up all over his shirt. I never laughed so hard in my life. Lucien, though, has no sense of humor and vowed never to take us again."
"I'm surprised you didn't mention the part where you fainted," Lucien said wryly.
Strider chortled. "Oh, man. You fainted? What a baby!"
"Hey," Paris said, frowning at Lucien. "I told you I hit my head midflash."
Lucien — Gena Showalter

I looked into those eyes and I saw nothing. It was like staring straight into the Underworld. Like he aches to return to where he came from. — Marie Lu

Thank you, Caleb said, and hugged me once more. Part of me wanted to stay in Caleb's arms, because he'd always had this grounding effect on me. Caleb was my rational side. He was more than that; other than my mother, he was the first person I'd ever truly loved.
Caleb would always be my best friend. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

For many years I had heard about an underworld consisting of people who act out a vampire fantasy while I was living in New York. Fortunately for me there are also several books on the phenomena. — James Patterson

In China the underworld and officialdom have interpenetrated and become one. Criminal elements have become officialized as officials have become criminalized. — Liu Xiaobo

No one should brave the underworld alone. — Poe

Remember, I was only in to fighting; I wasn't a high-ranking underworld figure selling the Crown Jewels! I wasn't the Merthyr Mafia and I had no connections with the goings on of petty criminal matters. — Stephen Richards

Let twelve angels come into being to rule over chaos and the underworld. And look, from the cloud there appeared an angel whose face flashed with fire and whose appearance was defiled with blood. His name was Nebro, which means in translation 'rebel'; others call him Yaldabaoth. — Rodolphe Kasser

He died without cutting his nails, she said accusingly, as if I was responsible for that ill luck, and it was bad fortune indeed because now the grim things of the underworld would use Ivar's nails to build the ship that would bring chaos at the world's end. — Bernard Cornwell

I'll give you the moon and the stars, and a city to go along with it. — Con Template

I luxuriate more in a whole day alone; a day of easy natural poses; slipping tranquilly off into the deep water of my own thoughts, navigating the underworld. — Virginia Woolf

No one said finding Paris would be easy; I only said it would be worth it. — Con Template

Freud was a hero. He descended to the Underworld and met there stark terrors. He carried with him his theory as a Medusa's head which turned these terrors to stone. — R.D. Laing

It grew louder, siren crying from her the depth of very voice; Sweet melodies to
guide me to the underworld. — Chika Onyenezi

NICUs are like the bowels of the technological underworld. They are places where infants are literally held captive for weeks and months and subjected to all manner of painful and torturous medical procedures, most of the time without being given any form of pain relief whatsoever. — Jeanice Barcelo

Mary Jane was a very important person in The Underworld. Nasir liked to call her the chef of the Underworld. Although — Nako

Something tells me this isn't going to end well for everyone involved. Someone may get turned into a frog yet." And that was the good news. — Deborah Blake

Chiron looked surprised. I thought that would be obvious enough. The entrance to the Underworld is in Los Angeles. — Rick Riordan

Beware, William of Mercia, you heeded not our warnings and you can no longer turn back, but the path ahead is strewn with danger, to you, and to those who travel with you. This is but the beginning. The legions of the underworld await you, armies will seek to destroy you, but only you can know the true course. — K.J. Wignall

Mr. Fresh looked up. "The book says if we don't do our jobs everything could go dark, become like the Underworld. I don't know what the Underworld is like, Mr. Asher, but I've caught some of the road show from there a couple of times, and I'm not interested in finding out. How 'bout you?"
"Maybe it's Oakland," Charlie said.
"What's Oakland?"
"The Underworld."
"Oakland is not the Underworld!"
"The Tenderloin?" Charlie suggested. — Christopher Moore

If Heaven was a summer sky and a TV left on mute, then the Underworld was a starry night and an electric guitar with amps. — Charity Parkerson

The Poverty Tour provided the opportunity to meet many people who had been living paycheck to paycheck even before the economic downturn. To so quickly slide from the great middle into the underworld of the poor validated our suspicions that perhaps these citizens never really were bona fide, middle class Americans. Indeed, some economists assert that the middle class evaporated decades ago. — Cornel West

and was now bending over the golden effigy of a bat, perhaps Zotz, the Underworld god. — Deborah Jackson

Bring Hector back to life, and I'll take your place in the Underworld for the rest of eternity. — Josephine Angelini

Outside, you don't hear a single bird, and a deathly, oppressive silence hangs over the house and clings to me as if it were going to drag me into the deepest regions of the underworld ... I wander from room to room, climb up and down the stairs and feel like a songbird whose wings have been ripped off and who keeps hurling itself against the bars of its dark cage. — Anne Frank

Then, as we ascend into the fifth and final act of the show, we can choose what we want to take back with us: a piece of our underworld self that, frankly, the cheating boyfriend may need to meet, or the boss that doesn't appreciate you, or the terrorizing Bitch at school - or maybe you're the terrorizing Bitch, maybe I am. Some fragments that took their masks off while we were on this underworld journey sometimes walk quietly with me. Only I know that after the show they will be staying with me as my figurative New Renter in my seafront condo, down the street from Pituitary Lane, behind Heart Terrace. Then again, some unmasked Beings that I see during a performance find me once I'm back in my dressing room and receive from me the Okay you, thank you for the perspective and the vision, but in this century you can't just chop people's heads off and feed them to your cats, and I know these guys are bad guys, and thank you for the vision. So you can haunt me during the show again in Indy — Tori Amos

I am sure no other civilization, not even the Romans, has showed such a vast proportion of ignominious and degraded nudity, and ugly, squalid dirty sex. Because no other civilization has driven sex into the underworld, and nudity to the W.C. — D.H. Lawrence

Nico glanced back at Coach Hedge. The satyr just made a shooing gesture like, Go. Do your Underworld thing. — Rick Riordan

Life is not always about a past filled with mysteries or a future filled with endless dark possibilities ... it is also about a present filled with timeless distractions. — Con Template

I didn't want us to abnormal. I didn't want all this chaos and underworld crap ... but that's where we'd come from. The choas was part of us. Part of what we were. And I was afraid if we lost it completely, we might lose part of ourselves ... — Kevin Brooks

There is a sort of an unwritten code in Washington, among the underworld and the hustlers and these other guys, that I am their friend. — Marion Barry

Yet Theo had become engrossed in his own tale, transporting himself back to the night of which he spoke. In the distance, he could again see the faces he had encountered on that fateful night, the twisted bodies and pained expressions of the men who no longer walked the realms of men, but those of the underworld gods. — A.H. Septimius

DeLillo presents art as the soundest magic against dread, the truest source of radiance and community. Albeit tentatively and ambiguously, Underworld suggests that artists may achieve an accommodation with culture that is also act of resistance. (7) — Mark Osteen

I, for one, will not have [the Vietcong] insulted by any comparison to the forces of Zarqawi, the Fedayeen Saddam, and the criminal underworld now arrayed against us. These depraved elements are the Iraqi Khmer Rouge. — Christopher Hitchens

He'd never be able to touch her, and as passionate as she was, she would eventually need a man who could. He'd never had to worry about these things before because he'd never been with a woman. Not even before his possession. He'd been too busy then, too involved in his job. Maybe he needed to join Workaholics Anonymous, he thought dryly. He had to be the only millennia-old virgin in history. — Gena Showalter

Twenty-seven."
His brow puckered, and he blinked over at her. "Twenty-seven hundred years, right?"
If he were speaking to Taliyah, yes. "No. Just twenty-seven plain, ordinary years."
"You don't mean human years, do you?"
"No. I mean dog years," she said dryly, then pressed her lips together. Where was the filter that was usually poised over her mouth? Strider didn't seem to mind, though. Rather, he seemed stupefied. Would Sabin have had the same reaction were he awake? "What's so hard to believe about my age?" As the question echoed between them, a thought occurred to her and she blanched. "Do I look ancient?"
"No, no. Of course not. But you're immortal. Powerful. — Gena Showalter

Discretion prevented me from saying that I thought she was a fiend from the underworld and that mountain lions couldn't force me to enter her service. — Megan Whalen Turner

Evans made himself their spokesman. "Charlie and Joe," he offered. "Remember us? We brought a friend back with us this time." Girls evidently didn't count in this little subdivision of the underworld; a miscalculation many a shady character has made. — Cornell Woolrich