“Margaret in contrast held her head high, her cheeks flagged with a becoming rose color. She looked like a goddess enraged. A goddess who might, if they were alone, assault his person--the thought of which unaccountably aroused him.”

“When you dance, sister, you feel in your heart the blessing of the Goddess, her peace, her kindness. But when you are with him, then the power of the Goddess is in your heart, crashing through you. The Goddess is no thing of stone. The Goddess is breath, desire, despair. She is the green of the brushing leaf, the baby's cry, the lovers bite, the fragrance of the rose. You feel the Goddess moving through you. ”

“And it was told that as soon as Poseidon saw the young Goddess, who looked no more than eighteen years of age, by human reckoning, passion immediately overwhelmed him. Unlike all the other Goddesses & Nymphs of the Sea, Aphrodite was not naked. She wore a huge girdle around her slender waist which covered her breasts & her hips as well as her crotch & buttocks. And, thus, instead of impaling her with his trident, Poseidon was overcome with curiosity as to what she hid beneath her girdle. He thus introduced himself as the King & Sheriff of the Seas & told the young Goddess that, as such, no secrets should be kept from him by all those who wished to live in the sea. He would therefore request that she removed the girdle to show him what she hid beneath it.”

“You must be mistaken," Isabel said, unconcerned by the insult that the words carried."I assure you i am not. Voluptas is nearly always portrayed wrapped in roses. If that were not enough, her faces confirms her identity.""You cannot tell a goddess from a face carved in marble," she scoffed."You can tell Voluptas by her face.""I've never even heard of this goddess, and you know what she looks like?""She is the goddess of sensual pleasure."Isabel's mouth fell open at the words. She could not think of a single thing to say in response. "Oh”

“Her feet were large, and she had a habit of whistling badly, but these things made her worthy of being loved. A goddess might be adored for a moment, but only a real person can speak forever to the rest of us.”

“Hera said that Hephaestus was the one who made the lovely chariots for Zeus, Poseidon & Hades. Also the one for Helios, the Sun God. And if she married him, he might make one for her too. But she did not tell the young Goddess of Love why none of the Goddesses wanted to marry him in the first instance & that he was ugly & a cripple. She also omitted to tell her that Hephaestus, having created the first woman, Pandora, from clay, had neither the patience nor the inclination to woo & pamper women, let alone put up with the changing moods of the young lovely Goddesses at Olympus. And that even the warlike & down-to-earth Athena had dropped him like a ton of bricks.As Aphrodite did not appear to have any choices, she nodded her head & thus accepted Hera as her future mother-in-law. And this explains one of the greatest mysteries in Greek Mythology: why the loveliest & most beautiful of the Goddesses would agree to marry the ugliest of the Gods. For this mismatch would not have happened if not for Hera.”