“Annabeth, thank goodness, would be staying in New York. She'd gotten permission from her parentsto attend a boarding school in the city so she could be close to Olympus and oversee the rebuildingefforts."And close to me?" I asked."Well, someone's got a big sense of his own importance." But she laced her fingers through mine. Iremembered what she'd told me in New York, about building something permanent, and I thought—justmaybe—we were off to a good start.”

“But she laced her fingers through mine. I remember what she’d told me in New York, about building something permanent, and I thought-just maybe-we were off to a good start.”

“I remembered what she'd told me in New York, about building something permanent, and I thought - just maybe - we were off to a good start.”

“...since I was a little boy, she had always wanted me to go. She was always sending me off on a bus someplace, to elementary school, to camp, to relatives in Kentucky, to college. She pushed me away from her just as she'd pushed my elder siblings away when we lived in New York, literally shoving them out the front door when they left for college. ”

“It is necessary to find one's own way in New York. New York City is not hospitable. She is very big and she has no heart. She is not charming. She is not sympathetic. She is rushed and noisy and unkempt, a hard, ambitious, irresolute place, not very lively, and never gay. When she glitters she is very, very bright, and when she does not glitter she is dirty. New York does nothing for those of us who are inclined to love her except implant in our hearts a homesickness that baffles us until we go away from her, and then we realize why we are restless. At home or away, we are homesick for New York not because New York used to be better and not because she used to be worse but because the city holds us and we don't know why.”

“She passed her New York Reviews on to Troy without giving them a glance; she told him she thought there was something perverted about book reviews that were longer than the books they were reviewing.”