Quotes about water
page 4

“Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers.”

Heraclitus (-535) pre-Socratic Greek philosopher

Fragment 12
Numbered fragments

“There is simply no room left for 'freedom from the tyranny of government' since city dwellers depend on it for food, power, water, transportation, protection, and welfare.”

William S. Burroughs book Cities of the Red Night

Cities of the Red Night (1981)
Context: There is simply no room left for 'freedom from the tyranny of government' since city dwellers depend on it for food, power, water, transportation, protection, and welfare. Your right to live where you want, with companions of your choosing, under laws to which you agree, died in the eighteenth century with Captain Mission. Only a miracle or a disaster could restore it.

Food, Freedom, Dependency

“Midnight on the water
I saw the ocean's daughter
Walking on a wave's chicane
Staring as she called my name And I can't get it out of my head”

Jeff Lynne (1947) British rock musician

"" ("Walking on a wave's chicane" are the official lyrics, but these are often heard and quoted as "Walking on a wave she came")
Eldorado, A Symphony (1974)
Context: Midnight on the water
I saw the ocean's daughter
Walking on a wave's chicane
Staring as she called my name And I can't get it out of my head
No, I can't get it out of my head
Now my old world is gone for dead
'Cos I can't get it out of my head

Daughters

“When you throw a rock into the water, it will speed on the fastest course to the bottom of the water. This is how it is when Siddhartha has a goal, a resolution.”

Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) German writer

As translated by Ejvind Haas
Siddhartha (1922)
Context: When you throw a rock into the water, it will speed on the fastest course to the bottom of the water. This is how it is when Siddhartha has a goal, a resolution. Siddhartha does nothing, he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he passes through the things of the world like a rock through water, without doing anything, without stirring; he is drawn, he lets himself fall. His goal attracts him, because he doesn't let anything enter his soul which might oppose the goal. This is what Siddhartha has learned among the Samanas. This is what fools call magic and of which they think it would be effected by means of the daemons. Nothing is effected by daemons, there are no daemons. Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, if he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast.

Speed

“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water. ”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

For women, Strong, Tea

“Capitalism without socialism is like a great shark in the waters that will eat up everything in sight, and has no group sense or social responsibility. We need to take the best of both systems and bring them together…. a fusion of the best aspects of both. Both are necessary. The sense of justice, brotherhood and social caring… is necessary for the West, but the sense of freedom of the individual in movement, expression and thought is necessary in the East. That is something which will… gradually become the norm in Europe and eventually throughout the world…. not capitalism or communism, but social democracy or democratic socialism with full participation of all peoples in their own government.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Maitreya's Mission Vol. II (1993)

Democracy, Justice, Freedom, People

“In twenty to thirty thousand years memories become legends and legends become superstitions and even the superstitions become lost. Metals rust and corrode back into earth while the wind, the rain and the jungle erode and cover stone. The contours of the very continents change—and glaciers come and go, and a city of twenty thousand years before is under miles of earth or miles of water.”

Fredric Brown book Letter to a Phoenix

Letter to a Phoenix (p. 337)
Short fiction, From These Ashes (2000)

Memory, Change

“For every person who perishes from the effects of a stimulant, at least a thousand die from the consequences of drinking impure water. This precious fluid, which daily infuses new life into us, is likewise the chief vehicle through which disease and death enter our bodies. The germs of destruction it conveys are enemies all the more terrible as they perform their fatal work unperceived. They seal our doom while we live and enjoy. The majority of people are so ignorant or careless in drinking water, and the consequences of this are so disastrous, that a philanthropist can scarcely use his efforts better than by endeavoring to enlighten those who are thus injuring themselves. By systematic purification and sterilization of the drinking water the human mass would be very considerably increased. It should be made a rigid rule which might be enforced by law to boil or to sterilize otherwise the drinking water in every household and public place. The mere filtering does not afford sufficient security against infection. All ice for internal uses should be artificially prepared from water thoroughly sterilized. The importance of eliminating germs of disease from the city water is generally recognized, but little is being done to improve the existing conditions, as no satisfactory method of sterilizing great quantities of water has yet been brought forward. By improved electrical appliances we are now enabled to produce ozone cheaply and in large amounts, and this ideal disinfectant seems to offer a happy solution of the important question.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

The Problem of Increasing Human Energy (1900)

Drink, Law, Question, Personality

“Lost in his thoughts he looked out from his shop at the shining loveliness of that first day of March. Opposite him, a little to the side, stood the eternal bridge, everlastingly the same; through its white arches could be seen the green, sparkling, tumultous waters of the Drina, so that they seemed like some strange diadem in two colours which sparkled in the sun.”

Ivo Andrič book The Bridge on the Drina

Source: The Bridge on the Drina (1945), Ch. 17

Sun

“Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land. … Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators; you cannot conserve the waters and waste the ranges; you cannot build the forest and mine the farm. The land is one organism.”

Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American writer and scientist

"Conservation" (c. 1938); Published in Round River, Luna B. Leopold (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 145-146.
1930s

Hate, Game, Love, Making love

“Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water; she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.”

Francis of Assisi Canticle of the Sun

Canticle of the Sun

Sister

“I don't believe in this nonsense about time. Time is just common, it's like water for a fish. Everybody's in this water, nobody gets out of it, or if he does the same thing happens to him that happens to the fish, he dies. And you know what happens in this water, time? The big fish eat the little fish. That's all. The big fish eat the little fish and the ocean doesn't care.”

James Baldwin book Giovanni's Room

Pt. 1, Ch. 2 - p.31
Giovanni's Room (1956)

Fish, Time

“I opened with that which good Catholics have more than once made to Huguenots. "My dear sir," said I, "were you ever baptized?" "No, friend," replied the Quaker, "nor any of my brethren." "Zounds!" said I to him, "you are not Christians then!" "Friend," replied the old man, in a soft tone of voice, "do not swear; we are Christians, but we do not think that sprinkling a few drops of water on a child's head makes him a Christian." "My God!" exclaimed I, shocked at his impiety, "have you then forgotten that Christ was baptized by St. John?" "Friend," replied the mild Quaker, "once again, do not swear. Christ was baptized by John, but He Himself never baptized any one; now we profess ourselves disciples of Christ, and not of John." "Mercy on us," cried I, "what a fine subject you would be for the holy inquisitor! In the name of God, my good old man, let me baptize you."”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Voltaire's account of his conversations with Andrew Pit
The History of the Quakers (1762)

God, Thinking, Christ, Making love

“Once plants and animals were raised together on the same farm — which therefore neither produced unmanageable surpluses of manure, to be wasted and to pollute the water supply, nor depended on such quantities of commercial fertilizer. The genius of America farm experts is very well demonstrated here: they can take a solution and divide it neatly into two problems.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

The Unsettling of America : Culture & Agriculture (1996), p. 62

Animals, Problem, Dependency

“It covers your shame, keeps you from shivering.
Grass and water are the food it asks.
Who taught you, priest-man,
to feed this breathing thing to your thing of stone?”

Lalleshwari (1320–1392) Indian writer, mystic and saint

The Poems of Lal Ded, poem 59, p. 15
Poetry

Grass, Food

“Coral reefs are farmers. They provide food, income and food security for hundreds of millions of people around the world. Coral reefs are security guards. The structures that they build protect our shorelines from storm surge and waves, and the biological systems that they house filter the water and make it safer for us to work and play. Coral reefs are chemists. The molecules that we're discovering on coral reefs are increasingly important in the search for new antibiotics and new cancer drugs. And coral reefs are artists. The structures that they build are some of the most beautiful things on planet Earth. And this beauty is the foundation of the tourism industry in many countries with few or little other natural resources.”

Kristen Marhaver American marine biologist

Source: How we're growing baby corals to rebuild reefs https://www.ted.com/talks/kristen_marhaver_how_we_re_growing_baby_corals_to_rebuild_reefs (October 2015)

Housing, Search, Food, Country

“Plant the flower of love on fertile ground, and provide personal care; furnish water during a drought; offer substance so it will grow strong, and always prune the deadened branches to spring anew.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1980

Strong, Personality, Spring, Flowers

“No one goes to the stream early morning and comes back with dirty water.”

Dr. Manuel

“Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting

Weather

“In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Time

“Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.”

Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…

“Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation... even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

“How you succeeded yesterday is water under the bridge, you have to reinvent yourself and look ahead for new accomplishments.”

Vladimer Botsvadze

“When in love, a bridge is constructed between two souls. Each year the bridge evolves and grows stronger and at a point in the future appears indestructible; when betrayal appears in the form of dynamite, the bridge becomes gravely damaged. And the betrayer and betrayed must determine if it can ever be reconstructed. Regrettably, the scars and cracks remain; some visible, and others hidden beneath the water.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1973

Soul, Appearance, Love, Betrayal

“A leaf carried away with the stream of water, it can crash along the way, or go on to the darkest parts of the unknown ocean.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Way, Parting

“The multi-dimensional aspects of water are amazing. Water contains within itself the knowing or the memory of anything it comes into contact with. This means it carries the knowing and the memory of a place and the happenings there, going back sometimes thousands of years. It is full of information… Sort of like a mirror that keeps the reflection of anything it has ever encountered.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Source: tealswan.com/quotes

Memory

“By drinking water, you are essentially informing yourself. Even if you are not yet at the point to be able to be consciously aware of what information you are absorbing, that information the water contains is being transferred to your being.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Source: tealswan.com/quotes

Drink

“Can you see that this “I” is fleeting, a temporary formation, like a wave pattern on the surface of the water? Who is it that sees this? Who is it that is aware of the fleetingness of your physical and psychological form? I am. This is the deeper “I” that has nothing to do with past and future.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003)

Past, Future

“Who likes wrinkles?
No one, however remember the laughter, happiness and joy
that created those beautiful marks.
Tell me…would you rather have smooth skin like a cold stone or to see ripples in it from years of happily sitting in a river of running water with the hot sun beating down upon it?”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Happiness, Sun, Beauty, Joy

“She don't believe in shooting stars
But she believe in shoes and cars Order the hors d'oeuvres, views of the water
Straight from a page of your favorite author
And the weather's so breezy
Man, why can't life always be this easy?”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Flashing Lights
Lyrics, Graduation (2007)

Star, Shoe, Weather, Cars

“We must choose between champagne for a few or drinking water for all.”

Thomas Sankara (1949–1987) President of Upper Volta

Quoted in Le Monde https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2021/12/23/thomas-sankara-l-itineraire-tourmente-d-un-homme-integre-sur-brutx_6107156_3246.html

Drink

“Some of you are drowning, trying to catch every “next BIG wave”… When had you stayed faithful to the first idea you committed to, you'd be walking on water by now.”

Joshua King Madrid (1998)

Source: JetSet Instagram Caption: https://www.instagram.com/p/CqJWWZAvoY2/

Faith, Idea

“Just like water and air, connection with others is a basic human need.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

“People who were wounded by being incompatible with their family and therefore being pushed away, shamed and rejected for who they are, are desperate to belong. They are so desperate for connection that they commit to people who are incompatible to them even after they become aware of the incompatibility. It is a bit like being so desperate for water that you'll drink it even if you know it is poisoned.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

People, Family, Drink

“From sorrow to sorrow love crosses its islands
and establishes roots that are watered by weeping.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Love

“A woman is like a teabag - only in hot water do you realize how strong she is.”

Nancy Reagan (1921–2016) actress and first lady of the United States

Strong

“I was a man who thrived on solitude; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me. I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 17
Context: I got into bed, opened the bottle, worked the pillow into a hard knot behind my back, took a deep breath, and sat in the dark looking out of the window. It was the first time I had been alone for five days. I was a man who thrived on solitude; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me. I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it. The darkness of the room was like sunlight to me. I took a drink of wine.

Food, Solitude, Dependency

“See, that was the problem in relationships when emotion began muddying the waters. It was as if (Lexie) expected him to do or say exactly the right thing at exactly the right time, whatever that was.”

Nicholas Sparks book True Believer

Source: True Believer

Problem, Time

“He was alone. He was unheeded, happy, and near to the wild heart of life. He was alone and young and wilful and wildhearted, alone amid a waste of wild air and brackish waters and the seaharvest of shells and tangle and veiled grey sunlight.”

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Life, Heart, Happiness

“Worshiping the Devil is no more insane than worshiping God… It is precisely at the moment when positivism is at its high-water mark that mysticism stirs into life and the follies of occultism begin.”

Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848–1907) French novelist and art critic

Life, God

“Your shadow stealthily
leaves nothing of where you go, like a poisoned needle
that sews together my footsteps.
Your light pliantly
strikes the water tower, like a lightning bolt
that severs the source of my life.
-Soifon”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Source: Bleach, Volume 18

Life, Light

“Ah, Mastery of the Five Elements!"
"Is that the one we want?" I asked.
"No, but a good one. How to tame the five essential elements of the universe - earth, air, water, fire, and cheese!"
"Cheese?”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Universe

“What Is Love? I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Variant: I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat was threadbare - there were holes at his elbows; the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul.
Source: Les Misérables

Wedding, For Him, Soul, Star

“Her vision of the world under the water represented a beautiful stillness, a version of heaven. It was the lost city of Lena, her alternate universe, the life she yearned for but didn't get to have.”

Ann Brashares book Sisterhood Everlasting

Source: Sisterhood Everlasting

Life, World, Beauty, Universe

“It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)
Context: Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them - a mother's approval, a father's nod - are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.

Children, Understanding, Heart

“so much depends
upon a red wheel
barrow glazed with rain
water beside the white
chickens”

William Carlos Williams book Spring and All

"The Red Wheelbarrow"
Source: Spring and All (1923)

Dependency

“Sometimes grace works like water wings when you feel you are sinking.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

Feeling

“Prayer is like water - something you can't imagine has the strength or power to do any good, and yet give it time and it can change the lay of the land.”

Jodi Picoult book Sing You Home

Source: Sing You Home

Imagination, Change, Time

“You are a pool of clear water where the light plays”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Written on the Body

Light

“I nodded, pretending I was relaxed. I watched the sunlight sparkling on the water and practiced mind-body integration for a few seconds by quietly hyperventilating.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: It Chooses You

“I drank lots of water and orange juice and took a multivitamin and iron supplement for breakfast, which was my regimen since Bill had come into my life and brought (along with love, adventure, and excitement) the constant threat of anemia.”

Charlaine Harris book Living Dead in Dallas

Source: Living Dead in Dallas

Love, Life

“He whirled in the water and grinned at me. Damn, he was a handsome bastard. I realized he was half-naked. Blue swirls of tattoos painted his chest. When God made that chest, he did to tempt women.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Women, God, Tattoo, Painting

“As always, she was carrying the washing. Rudy was carrying two buckets of cold water, or as he put it, two buckets of future ice.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Future

“Holy water at my wrists and behind my ears; my version of Eau de Don'tbiteme”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Source: Darkfever

“If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read "President Can't Swim.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

Reading

“I bought some powdered water, but I don't know what to add.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Steven Wright Special (1985)

“A soul of water a soul of stone.
A soul by name a soul unknown.
The hours unmake our flesh our bone.
The Soul is all and all alone!”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

Soul

“Fire and water," he said, "don't really mix. You could say they're incompatible. But when they do love each other, they love passionately.”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkspell

Love, Passion

“Mirroring behavior. When a mark takes a drink from his water glass, so should you. When he smiles, so should you. Keep it subtle, rather than creepy, and it’s a good technique.”

Holly Black book Black Heart

Source: Black Heart

Smile, Behavior, Drink

“Do not mistake me for my mask. You see light dappling on the water and forget the deep, cold dark beneath.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

Light, Forgetting

“When you love a man, he becomes more than a body. His physical limbs expand, and his outline recedes, vanishes. He is rich and sweet and right. He is part of the world, the atmosphere, the blue sky and the blue water”

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) American writer

Love, World, Parting

“Percy was getting tired of water.
If he said that aloud, he would probably get kicked out of Poseidon’s Junior Sea Scouts, but he didn’t care.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Sea, Scouting

“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Variant: But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.
Source: Persuasion

For women, Women, Hate

“Sometimes I looked at her sleeping face, the living flesh of it, and was overwhelmed by how precarious it was to love a living thing. She could die simply from lack of water. It hardly seemed safer than falling in love with a plant.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: The First Bad Man

Love, Sleep

“The rose petal floats on water. The kingfisher flashes above the pond. Life and beauty swirl in the midst of death.”

Robert Jordan book The Eye of the World

al'Lan Mandragoran
(15 January 1990)
Source: The Eye of the World

Life, Death, Beauty

“The water crumbles on it's way down as my hands and feet push me forward. The world is lightening, taking shape, and turning to color. It feels like it's being painted around me.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

World, Color, Way, Feeling

“At first she was overjoyed that he would be with her, but then she recalled that human people could not live under the water, and he could only visit her father's palace as a dead man.”

Hans Christian Andersen book The Little Mermaid

Source: The Little Mermaid

People, Dead

“Otis barreled towards them empty-handed, before apparently realizing that a) he was empty-handed and b) charging towards a large body of water to fight a son of Poseidon was maybe not a good idea.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Idea, Fight

“I am going to outlive myself. Eat, sleep, sleep, eat. Exist slowly, softly, like these trees, like a puddle of water, like the red bench in the streetcar.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Source: Nausea

Sleep, Tree

“Love drains you, takes with it much of your blood sugar and water weight. You are like a house slowly losing its electricity, the fans slowing, the lights dimming and flickering; the clocks stop and go and stop.”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

Source: Self-Help

Love, Light, Housing

“Five Great Charters knit the land
together linked hand and hand.
One in the people who wear the crown
Two in the folk who keep the Dead down
Three and Five became stone and mortar
Four sees all in frozen water.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Old Kingdom series (The Abhorsen Trilogy), Sabriel (1995), p. 216.

People, Dead

“A book floated down the Amper River.
A boy jumped in, caught up to it, and held
it in his right hand. He grinned. He stood
waist-deep in the icy, Decemberish water.
“How about a kiss, Saumensch?” he said.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Books, Boy, Kiss

“As the water pounded on my back, I reflected that I must be pretty simple. It didn't take much to make me happy. A long night with a dead guy had done the trick.”

Charlaine Harris book Dead to the World

Source: Dead to the World

Guy, Night, Dead, Happiness

“… to slip beneath the surface and soar along the silent bottom of the sea agile and shining in water honeycombed with light.”

Ellen Meloy (1946–2004) American writer

Light, Sea

“During a warm winter rain… the basins of her collarbones collected water.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

Winter

“All this new stuff goes on top
turn it over, turn it over
wait and water down
from the dark bottom
turn it inside out
let it spread through
Sift down even.
Watch it sprout.

A mind like compost.”

Gary Snyder (1930) American poet

Waiting

“There are some people who leave impressions not so lasting as the imprint of an oar upon the water.”

Kate Chopin book The Awakening

Source: The Awakening

People

“It’s easy to plant a seed and sprinkle it with water, but once the sun scorches the ground, and the earth soaks up all the moisture, you’re left with nothing but a thirsty little flower trying desperately to make it out of the dirt.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: God-Shaped Hole

Flowers, Sun

“Loving is a journey with water and with stars,
with smothered air and abrupt storms of flour:
loving is a clash of lightning-bolts
and two bodies defeated by a single drop of honey.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Love, Star

“we are drawn to each other like drops of water, like the planets we repulse each other like magnets, like the color of our skin.”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Source: Bleach, Volume 04

Color

“When young lips have drunk deep of the bitter waters of hate, suspicion and despair, all the love in the world will not wholly take away that knowledge. Though it may turn darkened eyes for a while to the light, and teach faith where no faith was.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Love, Hate, World, Faith

“Their friendship was like a wilted bunch of flowers that she insisted on topping up with water. Why not let it die instead?”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

Friendship, Flowers

“You asked me who I thought I was before. I said maybe I was a fish because I love water and you said, you thought a mermaid, maybe.
If you were a mermaid, you said, if you were a mermaid, I was the sea.”

Francesca Lia Block book Wasteland

Source: Wasteland

Love, Fish, Sea

“All sixteen mentioned her jutting ribs, the insubstantiality of her thighs, and one, who went up to the roof with Lux during a warm winter rain, told us how the basins of her collarbones collected water.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

Winter

“Information is a lot like water; it's hard to hold on to, and hard to keep from leaking away.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

“They keep saying that sea levels are rising an all this. It's nowt to do with the icebergs melting, it's because there's too many fish in it. Get rid of some of the fish and the water will drop. Simple. Basic science.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

3 Minute Wonder, Episode 4
On Nature
Source: The Ricky Gervais Show - First, Second and Third Seasons

Fish, Science, Sea

“Nereus spun and expanded, turning into a killer whale, but I grabbed his dorsal fin as he burst out of the water.
A whole bunch of tourists went, "Whoa!"
I managed to wave at the crowd.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

“I hated labels anyway. People didn’t fit in slots—prostitute, housewife, saint—like sorting the mail. We were so mutable, fluid with fear and desire, ideals and angles, changeable as water.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Variant: I hated labels anyway. People didn't fit in slots--prostitute, housewife, saint--like sorting the mail. We were so mutable, fluid with fear and desire, ideals and angles, changeable as water.
Source: White Oleander

Hate, People, Fear

“What is the scent of water?"
"Renewal. The goodness of God coming down like dew.”

Elizabeth Goudge (1900–1984) English fiction writer

Source: The Scent of Water

God