Quotes about crew (115 quotes, page 2) | Quotes of famous people

“I made sail, and directed the other vessels to follow, for the purpose of closing with the enemy. Every brace and bowline being soon shot away, she became unmanageable, notwithstanding the great exertions of the sailing master. In this situation, she sustained the action upwards of two hours within canister distance, until every gun was rendered useless, and the greater part of her crew either killed or wounded.”

Oliver Hazard Perry (1785–1819) United States Naval Officer

Report on the Battle of Lake Erie, from the US Schooner Ariel, Put-In-Bay, (13 September 1813)
Context: I made sail, and directed the other vessels to follow, for the purpose of closing with the enemy. Every brace and bowline being soon shot away, she became unmanageable, notwithstanding the great exertions of the sailing master. In this situation, she sustained the action upwards of two hours within canister distance, until every gun was rendered useless, and the greater part of her crew either killed or wounded. Finding she could no longer annoy the enemy, I left her in charge of lieutenant Yarnall, who, I was convinced, from the bravery already displayed by him, would do what would comport with the honour of the flag. At half past two, the wind springing up, captain Elliot was enabled to bring his vessel, the NIAGARA, gallantly into close action. I immediately went on board of her, when he anticipated my wish by volunteering to bring the schooner which had been kept astern by the lightness of the wind, into close action. It was with unspeakable pain that I saw, soon after I got on board the NIAGARA, the flag of the LAWRENCE come down, although I was perfectly sensible that she had been defended to the last, and that to have continued to make a show of resistance would have been a wanton sacrifice of the remains of her brave crew. But the enemy was not able to take possession of her, and circumstances soon permitted her flag again to be hoisted.

Parting

“Not a very well-known fact, but on planes they always carry a trombone just in case there's a disaster and they need to keep morale up. All cabin crew - fully proficient in the trombone. And of course there's a double facility: if you ditch at sea, it can be used as a snorkel.”

Bill Bailey (1965) English comedian, musician, actor, TV and radio presenter and author

Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra (2008)

Sea

“It shouldn't be hard to imagine just what most of the crew must have thought when they first looked across the open hill-side and saw their boss seemingly playing with a matchbook in dry grass.”

Norman Maclean book Young Men and Fire

Young Men and Fire (1992)
Context: It shouldn't be hard to imagine just what most of the crew must have thought when they first looked across the open hill-side and saw their boss seemingly playing with a matchbook in dry grass. Although the Mann Gulch fire occurred early in the history of the Smokejumpers, it is still their special tragedy, the one in which their crew suffered almost a total loss and the only one in which their loss came from the fire itself. It is also the only fire any member of the Forest Service had ever seen or heard of in which the foreman got out ahead of his crew only to light a fire in advance of the fire he and his crew were trying to escape. In case I hadn't understood him the first time, Sallee repeated, "We thought he must have gone nuts." A few minutes later his fire became more spectacular still, when Sallee, having reached the top of the ridge, looked back and saw the foreman enter his own fire and lie down in its hot ashes to let the main fire pass over him.

Imagination , Grass

“We were all so different, temperamentally from one another, it's impossible to believe that we were together for so long. The cast and crew. How could we be more different from one another? It's difficult to imagine. But something lovely came of it.”

Madeleine Stowe (1958) American actress

Mohican Press interview (2005)
Context: There came a point in time, with all the difficulty, all the frustration, where I was quite content to be where I was. I suppose one could call it a kind of enchantment, I don't know. The shoot was so difficult on the crew and the extras. Often, it was unpleasant for them and many left. But difficulty also creates its own kind of beauty, I suppose. And while I don't revisit it unless asked, there is this sense of apartness I felt during that period of time from our own world. Perhaps the others felt the same, I'm unsure, and that is what you might feel when you watch the movie. We were all so different, temperamentally from one another, it's impossible to believe that we were together for so long. The cast and crew. How could we be more different from one another? It's difficult to imagine. But something lovely came of it.

Love , Imagination

“For he was of that stubborn crew
Of errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true Church Militant;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery;
And prove their doctrine orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire and sword and desolation,
A godly thorough reformation,
Which always must be carried on,
And still be doing, never done;
As if religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended.”

Samuel Butler (poet) Hudibras

Canto I, line 189
Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)
Context: For his Religion, it was fit
To match his learning and his wit;
'Twas Presbyterian true blue;
For he was of that stubborn crew
Of errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true Church Militant;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery;
And prove their doctrine orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire and sword and desolation,
A godly thorough reformation,
Which always must be carried on,
And still be doing, never done;
As if religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended.
A sect, whose chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies;
In falling out with that or this,
And finding somewhat still amiss;
More peevish, cross, and splenetick,
Than dog distract, or monkey sick.
That with more care keep holy-day
The wrong, than others the right way;
Compound for sins they are inclin'd to,
By damning those they have no mind to:
Still so perverse and opposite,
As if they worshipp'd God for spite.
The self-same thing they will abhor
One way, and long another for.
Free-will they one way disavow,
Another, nothing else allow:
All piety consists therein
In them, in other men all sin...

Men , Faith , Religion

“For reasons of security, our submarine operations throughout the Pacific can be discussed only in very general terms. No branch of the naval service, however, has acquitted itself more creditably. Submarine commanding officers are skillful, daring and resourceful. Their crews are well trained and efficient. Their morale is high, and in direct ratio to the success of submarine operations. Materially our submarines are in excellent shape, and we have kept up to the minute in all features of design and scientific development and research. The versatility of our submarines has been so repeatedly demonstrated throughout the war that the Japanese know only too well that in no part of the Pacific Ocean are they safe from submarine attack. When the full story can be told, it will constitute one of the most stirring chapters in the annals of naval warfare.”

Ernest King (1878–1956) United States Navy admiral, Chief of Naval Operations

Source: U.S. Navy at War, 1941-1945: Official Reports to the Secretary of the Navy (1946), p. 77

Training , War , Parting , Success

“We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed, for our safety, to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave — to the ancient enemies of man — half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

Speech to the UN Economic and Social Council, Geneva, Switzerland (9 July 1965)

Despair , Peace , Confidence , Dependency

“It was understood on occasions of this sort that crew technicians are too busy to stay, since it had long ago been discovered that even one cameraman at a buffet was worth a horde of locusts, and tended to make awkward small talk.”

Algis Budrys book Michaelmas

Source: Michaelmas (1977), Chapter 7 (p. 87)

Business , Making love

“During Navy Seal training the students are all broken down into boat crews. Each crew is seven students — three on each side of a small rubber boat and one coxswain to help guide the dingy. Every day your boat crew forms up on the beach and is instructed to get through the surf zone and paddle several miles down the coast. In the winter, the surf off San Diego can get to be 8 to 10 feet high and it is exceedingly difficult to paddle through the plunging surf unless everyone digs in. Every paddle must be synchronized to the stroke count of the coxswain. Everyone must exert equal effort or the boat will turn against the wave and be unceremoniously dumped back on the beach. For the boat to make it to its destination, everyone must paddle. You can’t change the world alone — you will need some help — and to truly get from your starting point to your destination takes friends, colleagues, the goodwill of strangers and a strong coxswain to guide you. If you want to change the world, find someone to help you paddle.”

William H. McRaven (1955) United States admiral

Strong , Help , World , Training

“So you’re trying to get me prepared for one of my crew dying?”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

“Historically speaking, humans are pretty much at a hundred percent on that.”
Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 3 (p. 36)

“There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. Everybody's crew.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

Marshall McLuhan
The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Seven, Right Power

“What we’d depicted and its implications stayed in the minds of every actor and crew member for a long time. I’m sure there were some nightmares. There are some things so far outside our experience or comprehension that they are unthinkable. Nuclear war is one.”

Mick Jackson (director) (1943) film director

How we made the nuclear apocalypse TV drama Threads

War , Time

“The government's priority remains the earliest termination of this hijacking and the earliest return of the passengers, crew and aircraft.”

Jaswant Singh (1938–2020) Indian politician and retired army officer

Source: As Minister of External Affairs of India, over Hijacking of Flight 814), Jaswant Singh's version of the Kandahar hijack https://www.rediff.com/news/2006/jul/21onkar1.htm (from Rediff).

“The idea that we’re going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews, just understand … that’s called World War III, okay? Let’s get it straight here, guys. We will not fight the third world war in Ukraine.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2022, March 2022
Source: Why Biden and the White House keep talking about World War III (March 17, 2022) https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/17/why-biden-white-house-keep-talking-about-world-war-iii/

War , World , Training , Idea

“It is sad for us to report this, but the clock has been turned back and California agriculture, with the exception of a handful of contracts that we still hold, we now have the labor contractor, the crew leader system back again, we now have child labor back again.”

Dolores Huerta (1930) American labor leader

1974 speech, in Voices of Multicultural America: Notable Speeches Delivered by African, Asian, Hispanic and Native Americans, 1790-1995 by Deborah Gillan Straub

Sadness

Quotes about crew page 2

Quotes about crew
page 2