“You do the easy thing, the appealing thing, the peaceful thing, mostly it turns sour in the end. But if you take the hard path - ah, that's how you reap the sweet rewards. Duty. Sacrifice. They mean something.”

“Eat bitter, taste sweet," Frank said. "I hate that proverb.""But it's true. What do they call it these days---no pain, no gain? Same concept. You do the easy thing, the appealing thing, the peaceful thing, mostly it turns out sour in the end. But if you take the hard path---ah, that's how you reap the sweet rewards. Duty. Sacrifice. They mean something.”

“Hubris means deadly pride. Thinking you can do things better than anyone else.”

“You speak horse?" Hazel asked."Speaking to horses is a Poseidon thing," Percy said. "Uh, I mean a Neptune thing.""Then you and Arion should get along fine," Hazel said. "He's a son of Neptune too."Percy turned pale. "Excuse me?”

“I am never, ever, going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it.”

“Hubris means deadly pride, Percy. Thinking you can do things better than anyone else... even the gods.''You feel that way?'She [Annabeth] looked down. 'Don't you ever feel like, what if the world really is messed up? What if we could do it all over again from scratch? No more war. Nobody homeless. No more summer reading homework.''I'm listening.''I mean, the West represents a lot of the best things mankind ever did - that's why the fire is still burning. That's why Olympus is still around. But sometimes you just see the bad stuff, you know? And you start thinking the way Luke does: "If I could tear this all down, I would do it better." Don't you ever feel that way? Like you could do a better job if you ran the world?”

“I've got a few ideas," (Amy) admitted. "But I don't know where we're going in the long term. I mean - have you ever thought about what this ultimate treasure could be?""Something cool." (Dan)"Oh, that's real helpful. I mean, what could make somebody the most powerful Cahill in history? And why thirty-nine clues?"Dan shrugged. "Thirty-nine is a sweet number. It's thirteen times three. It's also the sum of five prime numbers in a row - 3,5,7,11,13. And if you add the first three powers of three, 3 to the first, 3 to the second, and s to the third, you get thirty-nine."Amy stared at him. "How did you know that?""What do you mean? It's obvious.”