Quotes about boat (376 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Be loving to him. Because he’s only a little boat looking for a harbor.”

Arthur Miller book Death of a Salesman

Source: Death of a Salesman

Love

“The moon and sun are travelers through eternity. Even the years wander on. Whether drifting through life on a boat or climbing toward old age leading a horse, each day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

Life , Age , Travel , Home

“If a man, having lashed two hulls together, is crossing a river, and an empty boat happens along and bumps into him, no matter how hot-tempered the man may be, he will not get angry. But if there should be someone in the other boat, then he will shout out to haul this way or veer that. If his first shout is unheeded, he will shout again, and if that is not heard, he will shout a third time, this time with a torrent of curses following. In the first instance, he wasn't angry; now in the second he is. Earlier he faced emptiness, now he faces occupancy. If a man could succeed in making himself empty, and in that way wander through the world, then who could do him harm?”

Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher

World , Way , Time

“Dear Miss Glory, we've already had at least a hundred saviors and prophets here. Every boat brings another one. Missionaries, anarchists, the Salvation Army, everything imaginable. It would amaze you to know how many churches and lunatics there are in the world.”

Karel Čapek R.U.R.

R.U.R. (1920)

World , Imagination

“My day is done, and I am like a boat drawn on the beach, listening to the dance-music of the tide in the evening.”

Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds

Source: Stray Birds

Music , Dance

“A sail boat that sails backwards can never see the sun rise.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

Sun

“Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.”

Mark Twain Christian Science

Source: Christian Science

“These paper boats of mine are meant to dance on the ripples of hours, and not reach any destination.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Dance

“Only the guy who isn't rowing has time to rock the boat.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Leadership , Guy , Time

“Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”

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

Bird by Bird

“Then sail, my fine lady, on the billowing wave -
The water below is as dark as the grave,
And maybe you'll sink in your little blue boat -
It's hope, and hope only, that keeps us afloat”

Margaret Atwood book The Penelopiad

Source: The Penelopiad

Hope , Water

“Me still alone, me sip on the rum
Me wonder when the boat she come
To bring me love, oh sweet little thing
She rock 'n' roll, she dance and sing
She hold me tight, she touch me lips
Me eyes they close, me heart she flip
Havana moon, Havana moon”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

"Havana Moon" (1957)
Song lyrics

Love , Singing , Heart , Dance

“The past was real. The present, all about me, was unreal, unnatural, repellent. I saw the big ships lying in the stream… the home of hardship and hopelessness; the boats passing to and fro; the cries of the sailors at the capstan or falls; the peopled beach; the large hide houses, with their gangs of men; and the Kanakas interspersed everywhere. All, all were gone! Not a vestige to mark where one hide house stood. The oven, too, was gone. I searched for its site, and found, where I thought it should be, a few broken bricks and bits of mortar. I alone was left of all, and how strangely was I here! What changes to me! Where were they all? Why should I care for them — poor Kanakas and sailors, the refuse of civilization, the outlaws and the beachcombers of the Pacific! Time and death seemed to transfigure them. Doubtless nearly all were dead; but how had they died, and where? In hospitals, in fever climes, in dens of vice, or falling from the mast, or dropping exhausted from the wreck "When for a moment, like a drop of rain/He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan/Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown." The lighthearted boys are now hardened middle-aged men, if the seas, rocks, fevers, and the deadlier enemies that beset a sailor's life on shore have spared them; and the then strong men have bowed themselves, and the earth or sea has covered them. How softening is the effect of time! It touches us through the affections. I almost feel as if I were lamenting the passing away of something loved and dear — the boats, the Kanakas, the hides, my old shipmates! Death, change, distance, lend them a character which makes them quite another thing.”

Richard Henry Dana Jr. (1815–1882) United States author and lawyer

Twenty-Four Years After (1869)

Love , Life , Death , Men

“I shall never forget the impression which our first landing on the beach of California make upon me. The sun had just gone down; it was getting dusky; the damp night wind was beginning to blow, and the heavy swell of the Pacific was setting in, and breaking in loud and high "combers" on the beach… we put our oars in the boat, and, leaving one to watch it, walked about the beach to see what we could of the place. The beach is nearly a mile in length between the two points, and of smooth sand… It was growing dark, so that we could just distinguish the dim outlines of the two vessels in the offing; and the great seas were rolling in in regular lines, growing larger and larger as they approached the shore, and hanging over the beach upon which they were to break, when their tops would curl over and turn white with foam, and, being at one extreme of the line, break rapidly to the other, as a child's long card house falls when a card is knocked down at one end.”

Richard Henry Dana Jr. book Two Years Before the Mast

Two Years Before the Mast (1840)

Sun , Housing , Sea , Night

“I’m not here to argue or discuss anything that we differ about, because it’s time for us to submerge our differences and realize that it is best for us to first see that we have the same problem, a common problem, a problem that will make you catch hell whether you’re a Baptist, or a Methodist, or a Muslim, or a nationalist. Whether you’re educated or illiterate, whether you live on the boulevard or in the alley, you’re going to catch hell just like I am. We’re all in the same boat and we all are going to catch the same hell from the same man. He just happens to be a white man. All of us have suffered here, in this country, political oppression at the hands of the white man, economic exploitation at the hands of the white man, and social degradation at the hands of the white man.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)

Education , Hell , Problem , Suffering

“Thus ends the voyage under the seas. What passed during that night — how the boat escaped from the eddies of the maelstrom — how Ned Land, Conseil, and myself ever came out of the gulf, I cannot tell.”

Jules Verne book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Voici la conclusion de ce voyage sous les mers. Ce qui se passa pendant cette nuit, comment le canot échappa au formidable remous du Maelstrom, comment Ned Land, Conseil et moi, nous sortîmes du gouffre, je ne saurai le dire.
Part II, ch. XXIII: Conclusion
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)

Sea , Night

“Most men are scantily nourished on a modicum of happiness and a number of empty thoughts which life lays on their plates. They are kept in the road of life through stern necessity by elemental duties which they cannot avoid.
Again and again their will-to-live becomes, as it were, intoxicated: spring sunshine, opening flowers, moving clouds, waving fields of grain — all affect it. The manifold will-to-live, which is known to us in the splendid phenomena in which it clothes itself, grasps at their personal wills. They would fain join their shouts to the mighty symphony which is proceeding all around them. The world seem beauteous…but the intoxication passes. Dreadful discords only allow them to hear a confused noise, as before, where they had thought to catch the strains of glorious music. The beauty of nature is obscured by the suffering which they discover in every direction. And now they see again that they are driven about like shipwrecked persons on the waste of ocean, only that the boat is at one moment lifted high on the crest of the waves and a moment later sinks deep into the trough; and that now sunshine and now darkening clouds lie on the surface of the water.
And now they would fain persuade themselves that land lies on the horizon toward which they are driven. Their will-to-live befools their intellect so that it makes efforts to see the world as it would like to see it. It forces this intellect to show them a map which lends support to their hope of land. Once again they essay to reach the shore, until finally their arms sink exhausted for the last time and their eyes rove desperately from wave to wave. …
Thus it is with the will-to-live when it is unreflective.
But is there no way out of this dilemma? Must we either drift aimlessly through lack of reflection or sink in pessimism as the result of reflection? No. We must indeed attempt the limitless ocean, but we may set our sails and steer a determined course.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 256

Life , Men , Lie , World

“There are the most amusing things everywhere [in The Netherlands]. Houses of every colour, hundreds of windmills and enchanting boats, extremely friendly Dutchmen who almost all speak French…. I have not had time to visit the museums, I wish to work first of all and I'll treat myself to that later.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Quote in a letter to Camille Pissarro, 17 June 1871; first part cited in: Van Gogh Museum Journal 2001 http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_van012200101_01/_van012200101_01_0012.php Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam 2001. p. 140; second part cited in: Ann Dumas, ‎Denver Art Museum, ‎High Museum of Art (2007), Inspiring Impressionism: : the Impressionists and the art of the past. p. 181
1870 - 1890

Time , Housing

“The boat dipped and swayed and sometimes took on water, but it did not sink; the two brothers had waterproofed it well. I do not know where it finally fetched up, if it ever did; perhaps it reached the sea and sails there forever like a magic boat in a fairytale. All I know is that it was still afloat and still running on the breast of the flood when it passed the incorporated town limits of Derry, Maine, and there it passes out of this tale forever.”

Stephen King book It

It (1986)

Fairytale , Water , Sea

“I accept responsibility for U-boat warfare from 1933 onward, and of the entire navy from 1943 on, but to make me responsible for what happened to Jews in Germany, or Russian soldiers on the east front — it is so ridiculous all I can do is laugh.”

Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) President of Germany; admiral in command of German submarine forces during World War II

To Leon Goldensohn, July 14, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.

“Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country. All nations and ages have been subject to them. Britain has trembled like an ague at the report of a French fleet of flat-bottomed boats; and in the fourteenth [sic (actually the fifteenth)] century the whole English army, after ravaging the kingdom of France, was driven back like men petrified with fear; and this brave exploit was performed by a few broken forces collected and headed by a woman, Joan of Arc. Would that heaven might inspire some Jersey maid to spirit up her countrymen, and save her fair fellow sufferers from ravage and ravishment! Yet panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows through them, and acquires a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. In fact, they have the same effect on secret traitors, which an imaginary apparition would have upon a private murderer. They sift out the hidden thoughts of man, and hold them up in public to the world. Many a disguised Tory has lately shown his head, that shall penitentially solemnize with curses the day on which Howe arrived upon the Delaware.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

The Crisis No. I.
1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)

Men , Secret , Age , World

“The sea is superb, but the cliffs don't match up to those at Fecamp. Here I'll be certain to do more boats.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

in his letter from Dieppe; as quoted in: Howard F. Isham (2004) Image of the Sea: Oceanic Consciousness in the Romantic Century. p. 336 : About his 1880s travels
1870 - 1890

Sea

“Whether you are a Christian, or a Muslim, or a Nationalist, we all have the same problem. They don’t hang you because you’re a Baptist; they hang you ‘cause you’re black. They don’t attack me because I’m a Muslim; they attack me ‘cause I’m black. They attack all of us for the same reason -- all of us catch hell from the same enemy. We’re all in the same bag, in the same boat. We suffer political oppression, economic exploitation, and social degradation all of them from the same enemy.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Detroit, Michigan (12 April 1964)

Hell , Problem , Suffering

“He has an oar in every man's boat, and a finger in every pie.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 22.

“Our world is being torn apart by wars and violence, and wounded by a widespread individualism which divides human beings, setting them against one another as they pursue their own well-being. In various countries, conflicts and old divisions from the past are re-emerging. I especially ask Christians in communities throughout the world to offer a radiant and attractive witness of fraternal communion. Let everyone admire how you care for one another, and how you encourage and accompany one another: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35). This was Jesus’ heartfelt prayer to the Father: “That they may all be one… in us… so that the world may believe” (Jn 17:21). Beware of the temptation of jealousy! We are all in the same boat and headed to the same port! Let us ask for the grace to rejoice in the gifts of each, which belong to all.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Section 99
2010s, 2013, Evangelii Gaudium · The Joy of the Gospel

Love , War , World , Jealousy

“I was on the boat, at sea, not expecting anything (I was of course busy with the inner life, but I was living physically on the boat), when all of a sudden, abruptly, about two nautical miles from Pondicherry, the quality, I may even say physical quality, of the atmosphere of the air, changed so much that I knew we were entering the aura of Sri Aurobindo. It was a physical experience.”

The Mother (1878–1973) spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo

On her return to Pondicherry in April 1920 accompanied by an English lady, Miss Dorothy Hodgeson, after she had refused an offer by Rabindranath Tagore to take charge of Shantiniketan, his educational institute, quoted in "Japan (1916-20)", in [ Chapter 14 Second Coming, K R Srinivas Iyengar http://sriaurobindoashram.com/Content.aspx?ContentURL=_staticcontent/sriaurobindoashram/-09%20e-library/-03%20Disciples/K%20R%20Srinivas%20Iyengar/On%20The%20Mother/-16_Second%20Coming.htm, p. 202

Life , Business , Change , Sea

“To me the motif itself is an insignificant factor; what I want to reproduce is what lies between the motif and me... Other painters paint a bridge, a house, a boat... I want to paint the air in which the bridge, the house and the boat are to be found - the beauty of the air around them, and that is nothing less than the impossible.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Claude Monet, in an interview, 1895; as quoted in: Paul Hayes Tucker et al. (eds). (1999) Monet in the Twentieth Century. London: Royal Academy of Arts/Boston: Museum of Fine Arts. As cited in: Steven Connor, " About There, or Thereabouts http://www.stevenconnor.com/aboutthere/aboutthere.pdf." talk given at the Catalysis conference on Space and Time, Downing College, Cambridge, 23rd March 2013.
1890 - 1900

Beauty , Painting , Housing

“I read sometime around 1938 of Jewish fines and some street actions against them. But I was too concerned with U-Boats and the naval problems to be concerned about Jews.”

Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) President of Germany; admiral in command of German submarine forces during World War II

To Leon Goldensohn, May 2, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.

Problem , Reading

“Whoever embarks with a woman embarks with a storm; but they are themselves the safety boats.”

Arsène Houssaye (1814–1896) French writer

Source: James O'Donnell Bennett (1908) When Good Fellows Get Together, p. 147

“As I saw that they were very friendly to us, and perceived that they could be much more easily converted to our holy faith by gentle means than by force, I presented them with some red caps, and strings of beads to wear upon the neck, and many other trifles of small value, wherewith they were much delighted, and became wonderfully attached to us. Afterwards they came swimming to the boats, bringing parrots, balls of cotton thread, javelins, and many other things which they exchanged for articles we gave them, such as glass beads, and hawk's bells; which trade was carried on with the utmost good will. But they seemed on the whole to me, to be a very poor people. They all go completely naked, even the women, though I saw but one girl. All whom I saw were young, not above thirty years of age, well made, with fine shapes and faces; their hair short, and coarse like that of a horse's tail, combed toward the forehead, except a small portion which they suffer to hang down behind, and never cut. Some paint themselves with black, which makes them appear like those of the Canaries, neither black nor white; others with white, others with red, and others with such colors as they can find. Some paint the face, and some the whole body; others only the eyes, and others the nose. Weapons they have none, nor are acquainted with them, for I showed them swords which they grasped by the blades, and cut themselves through ignorance. They have no iron, their javelins being without it, and nothing more than sticks, though some have fish-bones or other things at the ends. They are all of a good size and stature, and handsomely formed. I saw some with scars of wounds upon their bodies, and demanded by signs the of them; they answered me in the same way, that there came people from the other islands in the neighborhood who endeavored to make prisoners of them, and they defended themselves. I thought then, and still believe, that these were from the continent. It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion. They very quickly learn such words as are spoken to them. If it please our Lord, I intend at my return to carry home six of them to your Highnesses, that they may learn our language. I saw no beasts in the island, nor any sort of animals except parrots.”

Cristoforo Colombo (1451–1506) Explorer, navigator, and colonizer

12 October 1492; This entire passage is directly quoted from Columbus in the summary by Bartolomé de Las Casas
Journal of the First Voyage

Women , People , Age , Faith

“In England women are still occasionally used instead of horses for hauling canal boats, because the labour required to produce horses and machines is an accurately known quantity, while that required to maintain the women of the surplus population is below all calculation.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Vol. I, Ch. 15, Section 2, pg. 430.
(Buch I) (1867)

Women , Horse

“To think of Russians sitting on a bench in Nuremberg, trying German leaders! The Russians sank a German boat with men, women, and children aboard. I know of the case. But is that investigated? You Americans weren't completely without fault, either. You armed merchant boats before the U. S. A. was in the war.”

Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) President of Germany; admiral in command of German submarine forces during World War II

To Leon Goldensohn, May 2, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.

Women , Men , War , Children

“You know what a poor correspondent I am. Ever since I received your very agreeable letter of the 22nd. of May I have been intending to write you in answer to it. You suggest that in political action now, you and I would differ. I suppose we would; not quite as much, however, as you may think. You know I dislike slavery; and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it. So far there is no cause of difference. But you say that sooner than yield your legal right to the slave — especially at the bidding of those who are not themselves interested, you would see the Union dissolved. I am not aware that any one is bidding you to yield that right; very certainly I am not. I leave that matter entirely to yourself. I also acknowledge your rights and my obligations, under the constitution, in regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down, and caught, and carried back to their stripes, and unrewarded toils; but I bite my lip and keep quiet. In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continued torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border. It is hardly fair for you to assume, that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1850s, Letter to Joshua F. Speed (1855)

Hate , People , Feeling , Exercises

“In Western Australia they don't even know how to make that vital piece of sailing-boat equipment, the gin and tonic.”

P. J. O'Rourke book Holidays in Hell

Holidays in Hell (1989)

“We need to create a world that is equitable, that is stable and a world where we bear in mind the needs of others, and not only what we need immediately. We are all in the same boat.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

" The World I'm Working To Create", Skoll World Forum (12 August 2013) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4ILV4IL-PA

World

“When a man, desperate for work, finds himself in a factory or on a fishing boat or in a field, working, toiling, for little or no pay, and beaten if he tries to escape -- that is slavery. When a woman is locked in a sweatshop, or trapped in a home as a domestic servant, alone and abused and incapable of leaving -- that’s slavery. When a little boy is kidnapped, turned into a child soldier, forced to kill or be killed -- that’s slavery. When a little girl is sold by her impoverished family”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2012, Remarks at Clinton Global Initiative (September 2012)
Context: Now, I do not use that word, "slavery" lightly. It evokes obviously one of the most painful chapters in our nation’s history. But around the world, there’s no denying the awful reality. When a man, desperate for work, finds himself in a factory or on a fishing boat or in a field, working, toiling, for little or no pay, and beaten if he tries to escape -- that is slavery. When a woman is locked in a sweatshop, or trapped in a home as a domestic servant, alone and abused and incapable of leaving -- that’s slavery. When a little boy is kidnapped, turned into a child soldier, forced to kill or be killed -- that’s slavery. When a little girl is sold by her impoverished family -- girls my daughters’ age -- runs away from home, or is lured by the false promises of a better life, and then imprisoned in a brothel and tortured if she resists -- that’s slavery. It is barbaric, and it is evil, and it has no place in a civilized world.

Family , Home , Girl , Boy

“New Zealand don’t contribute really anything to the defense effort that we’ve got where we’re trying to surveil boats that might be on their way to New Zealand, so I hope that (NZ Justice Minister) Andrew Little reflects a little more on the relationship between Australia and New Zealand where we do a lot of the heavy lifting.”

Peter Dutton (1970) Australian politician

The Australian, July 2018

Way , Hope , Justice , Effort

“Who now speaks of the fires in Australia, or remembers that 18 months ago a boat could cross the North Pole because the glaciers had all melted? Who speaks now of the floods? I don’t know if these are the revenge of nature, but they are certainly nature’s responses. Today I believe we have to slow down our rate of production and consumption and to learn to understand and contemplate the natural world. We need to reconnect with our real surroundings.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

On the coronavirus and environmental crises. Cited in Pope salutes 'saints next door' in fight against coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/08/pope-salutes-saints-next-door-fight-against-coronavirus-hyprocrisy in the Guardian. (8 April 2020)
2010s, 2020

Understanding , Learning , Revenge , Nature

“But I loved that house, and I hated to say good-bye. Because, it was more than just a house. It was every summer, every boat ride, every sunset. It was Susannah.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

Love , Hate , Summer , Housing

“The future is a fog that is still hanging out over the sea, a boat that floats home or does not.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Source: Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters

Home , Future , Sea

“We didn't stow away!" Dan protested. "You sunk our boat and pulled us out of the canal!"
"Good point," Ian agreed. "Return them to the canal. Roughly, please.”

Gordon Korman One False Note

Source: One False Note

“Time is a river, and books are boats.”

Dan Brown (1964) American author

Books , Time

“America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.”

James Ellroy (1948) Novelist, short story writer, essayist, memoirist

“Roark smiled, "Gail, if this boat were sinking, I'd give my life to save you. Not because it's any kind of duty. Only because I like you, for reasons and standards of my own. I could die for you. But I couldn't and wouldn't live for you.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Life , Smile

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Closing lines
Source: Quoted, The Great Gatsby (1925)

Past

“Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock.”

Frank Herbert book Chapterhouse: Dune

Source: Chapterhouse: Dune

“I dislike boats," Ragnor observed, looking around. "I get vilely seasick." The turning green joke was too easy. Magnus was not going to stoop to make it.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: What Really Happened in Peru

“Far below ran the silver ribbon of the East River, braceleted by shining bridges, flecked by boats as small as flyspecks, splitting the shining banks of light that were Manhattan and Brooklyn on either side.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Light

“Who am I? I'm just a writer. I write things down. I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure, I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow glass, but that comes later.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

Love , Dreams , Future

“no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… And then one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Variant: It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And then one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Source: The Great Gatsby

Past

“Not everyone wants this conventional little life you’re rowing your boat toward. I like my river of fire. And when it’s time for me to go I fully intend to roll off my one-person dinghy into the flames and be consumed. I'm not afraid.”

Zadie Smith book NW

Source: NW

Life , Time , Personality

“(opening lines) The terror, which would not end for another 28 years-if it ever did end-began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.”

Stephen King book It

Source: It (1986)

“No rescue boat can save the touches I left bobbing in the wild ocean of your flesh, but if they cut open your heart, like the belly of a shark, dumped its contents on a table—would there be any trace of me?”

Jeffrey McDaniel (1967) American writer

Source: The Splinter Factory

Heart

“This was an evil beyond thinking. The killing of a man was not so evil as the killing of a boat. For a boat does not have sons, and a boat cannot protect itself, and a wounded boat does not heal.”

John Steinbeck book The Pearl

Source: The Pearl

Thinking , Evil

“It's as if I'm Finnick, watching images of my life flash by. The mast of a boat, a silver parachute, Mags laughing, a pink sky, Beetee's trident, Annie in her wedding dress, waves breaking over rocks. Then its over.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Life , Wedding

“Oh my God," Maddie whispered, horrified. "I rented him that boat. Does that make me a murderer?"

Tara's heart clutched. "He's not dead yet."

"Hurry," Maddie called to Ford. "I can't be the one who killed Tara's ex!" I look terrible in orange!”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: The Sweetest Thing

God , Heart , Dead

“A Boat

O beautiful
was the werewolf
in his evil forest.
We took him
to the carnival
and he started
crying
when he saw
the Ferris wheel.
Electric
green and red tears
flowed down
his furry cheeks.
He looked
like a boat
out on the dark
water.”

Richard Brautigan (1935–1984) American novelist, poet, and short story writer

Beauty , Tear , Water , Evil

“What happened?" he demanded. "I heard an explosion!"

"Yeah. That was me. I set the boat alight."

"What?"

"I set fire to the boat."

"But we're on the boat!"

"I know.”

Anthony Horowitz book Skeleton Key

Source: Skeleton Key

“Shells sink, dreams float. Life's good on our boat.”

Jimmy Buffett (1946) American singer–songwriter and businessman

Life , Dreams

“What's the point? was my attitude. We're all just going to die and then NOT be let on the boat.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Abandon

“We can’t make a portal—”
“We’ve got a flying boat,” Carter offered.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Flying

“Adam hid in the Garden of Eden. Moses tried to substitute his brother. Jonah jumped a boat and was swallowed by a whale… Man likes to run from God. It's a tradition.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: Have a Little Faith: a True Story

God

“Please, I begged silently, please do not let my last moments on earth be me crammed into a tiny boat in the dark, surrounded by mechanical singing pirates.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: School's Out—Forever

Singing

“Don't try to behave as though you were essentially sane and naturally good. We're all demented sinners in the same cosmic boat - and the boat is perpetually sinking.”

Aldous Huxley book Island

Source: Island

Nature

“I thought about the relentless thought-processing, soul-devouring machine that is my brain, and wondered how on earth I was ever going to master it. Then I remembered that line from Jaws and couldn't help smiling: 'We're gonna need a bigger boat.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Smile , Soul , Help

“You're gonna need a bigger boat.”

Peter Benchley (1940–2006) American author and screenwriter

“They know they’ve won,” Carter guessed. “They’re making a show of it.”
“Yes,” Amos said.
“Well, let’s blow up the boats or something!” I said.
Amos looked at me. “Is that your strategy, honestly?”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

“A boat is always safe in the harbor, but that's not what boats are built for.”

Katie Couric (1957) American journalist

Source: The Best Advice I Ever Got: Lessons from Extraordinary Lives

“There was nothing new in sitting on this dock, on this or that wooden bench, watching for his boat to come. In some ways, she was always waiting for him.”

Ann Brashares book The Last Summer

Source: The Last Summer

Way , Waiting

“To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire--
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.”

Edgar Lee Masters book Spoon River Anthology

Source: Spoon River Anthology

Life , Sea , Madness

“She must find a boat and sail in it. No guarantee of shore. Only a conviction that what she wanted could exist, if she dared to find it.”

Jeanette Winterson book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Source: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

“And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
in their stone boats. They are more like stone
than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

"The Truth the Dead Know"
All My Pretty Ones (1962)

Lie , Shoe , Sea , Dead

“Well you've been brought here against your will, just like I have. If you ask me, we're all in the same boat. And it's leaking.”

John Boyne (1971) Irish novelist, author of children's and youth fiction

Source: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

“A rising tide lifts all the boats”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Remarks in Heber Springs, Arkansas, at the Dedication of Greers Ferry Dam (3 October 1963) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9455
Variant: Rising tide lifts all boats.
Remarks in Pueblo, Colorado following Approval of the Frying Pan-Arkansas Project (336)" (17 August 1962) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx
1963
Context: As this State's income rises, so does the income of Michigan. As the income of Michigan rises, so does the income of the United States. A rising tide lifts all the boats and as Arkansas becomes more prosperous so does the United States and as this section declines so does the United States. So I regard this as an investment by the people of the United States in the United States.

“I spent most of my dough on booze, broads and boats and the rest I wasted.”

Elmore Leonard book LaBrava

Source: LaBrava

“Allow me to translate, Twitchtip said, not even bothering to move. "She said if you don't stop your incessant babble, that big rat sitting in the boat next to you will rip your head off.”

Suzanne Collins Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane

Source: Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane

“… this beginning motion, this first time when a sail truly filled and the boat took life and knifed across the lake under perfect control, this was so beautiful it stopped my breath…”

Gary Paulsen (1939) American writer and musher

Source: Caught by the Sea

Life , Beauty , Time , Perfection

“But if I hadn't shoved you off the boat back there, you'd be lost at sea now, wouldn't you? We'd all be lost! So thanks to me you're all standing on land."
(Pirates, its a good thing they're idiots)”

Dave Barry book Peter and the Starcatchers

Source: Peter and the Starcatchers

Sea

“Most of Set’s forces were running towards our boat, screaming and throwing rocks (which tended to fall down and hit them, but no one says demons are bright).”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

“Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd come in and sink my boats.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Standup Comic (1999)

Home

“Someday, we’ll run into each other again, I know it.
Maybe I’ll be older and smarter and just plain better. If that happens,
that’s when I’ll deserve you. But now, at this moment, you can’t hook
your boat to mine, because I’m liable to sink us both.”

Gabrielle Zevin book Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Source: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

“There is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Rat, Ch. 1
Variant: There’s nothing––absolutely nothing––half so much worth doing as messing about in boats.
Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908)
Context: There is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. In or out of ‘em, it doesn’t matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that’s the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don’t; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you’re always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you’ve done it there’s always something else to do.

“Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Change

“Tomorrow. The word hangs in the air for a moment, both a promise and a threat. Then it floats away like a paper boat, taken from her by the water licking at her ankles.”

Thrity Umrigar book The Space Between Us

Source: The Space Between Us

Water

“That's what sailing is, a dance, and your partner is the sea. And with the sea you never take liberties. You ask her, you don't tell her. You have to remember always that she's the leader, not you. You and your boat are dancing to her tune.”

Michael Morpurgo (1943) British children's writer

Source: Alone on a Wide Wide Sea

Dance , Sea

“It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Pain , Peace , Feeling , Heart

“You belong among the wildflowers.
You belong in a boat out at sea.
you belong with your love on your arm.
You belong somewhere you feel free.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Wildflowers
Lyrics, Wildflowers (1994)

Love , Feeling , Sea

“Seek opportunity, not security. A boat in the harbor is safe, but in time its bottom will rot out.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Source: The Complete Life's Little Instruction Book

Time

“You stole a boat,” she snapped. “What am I doing with you, you boat-stealing lunatic?”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.”

Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971) Japanese Buddhist missionary

Life , Sea

“I like pessimists. They’re always the ones who bring life jackets for the boat.”

Lisa Kleypas book Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor

Source: Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor

Life

“We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

“Friends are supposed to act like harbor boats—let you know if you’re off course. But it ain’t always possible…”

Rebecca Wells book Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Source: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

“The boat is safer anchored at the port; but that’s not the aim of boats.”

Paulo Coelho book The Pilgrimage

Source: The Pilgrimage

“Hale!' Kat cried, but the boy only stared at her. 'Fine,' she conceded. 'I love your boat.'

'Ship.'

'Ship… Your ship is beautiful.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Love , Beauty , Boy

“I watch the boats go by
As the evening colours of the sand
The rain is bringing tears
From my lover's land
I watch the silver stars
melt in love with the sea
I cry to the wind:
– Bring back my lover to me!”

Mike Oldfield (1953) English musician, multi-instrumentalist

Song lyrics, Children of the Sun (1969)

Love , Star , Lovers , Tear

“You should work, no doubt. Work saves the mind from going astray. But prayer and meditation also are necessary. You must sit for meditation at least once in the morning and once in the evening. That will be like the helm of a boat. When one sits in meditation in the evening, there is self-examination in respect of the work done in the course of the day.”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

Women Saints of East and West

“For an hour Rosamond paced up and down the deck reveling in the breezy motion of the boat, the delicious sense of freedom which possessed her, the atmosphere of romance which surrounded her. Tempest lounged beside her, watching her beautiful face, listening to her happy voice, and enjoying her innocent companionship with the relish of a man eager for novelty and skillful in the art of playing on that delicate instrument, a woman's heart.”

Louisa May Alcott A Long Fatal Love Chase

A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866)

Beauty , Art , Sense , Freedom

“Each thing by Destiny
So hastens to grow worse, and backward goes;
As one against a stream his Vessel rowes,
Who if by chance his arm a little slack,
The Boat in the swift Chanel hurries back.”

John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic

The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Georgicks

Chance

“Let me tell you the secret of such so-called successes as there have been in my life, and here I believe I give you really good advice. It was to burn my boats and demolish my bridges behind me. Then one loses no time in looking behind, when one should have quite enough to do in looking ahead…”

Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930) Norwegian polar explorer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Rectorial address delivered at St. Andrews University, 3 November 1926. Translated in [Nansen, Fridtjof, Adventure, and other papers, https://books.google.com/books?id=G6snAQAAMAAJ, 1927, Books for Libraries Press, 27]

Life , Secret , Time , Success