Quotes about duck (161 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

To his wife, Nancy, while in hospital shortly after he was shot in an assassination attempt (30 March 1981). Reagan is believed to have been quoting the words of boxer Jack Dempsey to his wife after he lost to Gene Tunney in 1926. http://www.rd.com/content/openContent.do?contentId=26804
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

“Be a duck, remain calm on the surface and paddle like hell underneath.”

Michael Caine (1933) English actor and author

Hell

“Around 1945, daily life might have been hard, but the reputation of Disney was at its highest. The voices of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck had stabilized, Snow White and Bambi were huge hits and had received a number of international prizes. It really was like the brightness of a rising sun. And then Japanese children after the war had no choice but to face the flood of Disney comics that accompanied the brainwashing of “American democracy.””

Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989) Japanese cartoonist and animator

That was their merit as propaganda against the Japanese.
Tezuka Osamu and American Comics http://www.tcj.com/tezuka-osamu-and-american-comics/, (1973), as quoted by Ryan Holmberg, The Comics Journal, Jul 16, 2012.

Life , War , Children , Democracy

“Ducking for apples -- change one letter and it's the story of my life.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Life , Change

“The duck swallows the worm, the fox kills the duck, the men shoot the fox, and the devil hunts the men.”

Ken Follett book The Pillars of the Earth

Source: The Pillars of the Earth

Men

“Remember when you tried to convince me to feed a poultry pie to the mallards in the park to see if you could breed a race of cannibal ducks?"

"They ate it too," Will reminisced. "Bloodthirsty little beasts. Never trust a duck.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Gaudy Night

Source: Gaudy Night

Passion

“Tonight’s December thirty-first,
Something is about to burst.
The clock is crouching, dark and small,
Like a time bomb in the hall.
Hark, it's midnight, children dear.
Duck! Here comes another year!”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Source: Collected verse from 1929 on

New Year , Children , Time

“Just because you call an electric eel a rubber duck doesn't make it a rubber duck, does it? And God help the poor bastard who decides they want to take a bath with the duckie.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Jace to Clary, pg. 83
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

God , Help

“Jumping out a window five hundred feet above ground is not usually my idea of fun. Especially when I'm wearing bronze wings and flapping my arms like a duck.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

Idea

“Death strode away, stopped, and came back. He pointed a skeletal finger at The Duck Man.
WHY, he said, ARE YOU WALKING AROUND WITH THAT DUCK?
"What duck?"
AH. SORRY.”

Terry Pratchett book Soul Music

Source: Soul Music

Death

“I do not take any credit to my better-balanced head because I never went crazy on Presbyterianism. We go too slow for that. You never see us ranting and shouting and tearing up the ground, You never heard of a Presbyterian going crazy on religion. Notice us, and you will see how we do. We get up of a Sunday morning and put on the best harness we have got and trip cheerfully down town; we subside into solemnity and enter the church; we stand up and duck our heads and bear down on a hymn book propped on the pew in front when the minister prays; we stand up again while our hired choir are singing, and look in the hymn book and check off the verses to see that they don't shirk any of the stanzas; we sit silent and grave while the minister is preaching, and count the waterfalls and bonnets furtively, and catch flies; we grab our hats and bonnets when the benediction is begun; when it is finished, we shove, so to speak. No frenzy, no fanaticism --no skirmishing; everything perfectly serene. You never see any of us Presbyterians getting in a sweat about religion and trying to massacre the neighbors. Let us all be content with the tried and safe old regular religions, and take no chances on wildcat.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

"The New Wildcat Religion"

Books , Religion , Tear , Singing

“The discovery of a toy duck in the soap dish, presumably the property of some former juvenile visitor, contributed not a little to this new and happier frame of mind. What with one thing and another, I hadn't played with toy ducks in my bath for years, and I found the novel experience most invigorating. For the benefit of those interested, I may mention that if you shove the thing under the surface with the sponge and then let it go, it shoots out of the water in a manner calculated to divert the most careworn. Ten minutes of this and I was enabled to return to the bedchamber much more the old merry Bertram.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

Water

“Make ducks and drakes with shillings.”

George Chapman Eastward Hoe

Act I, scene i.
Eastward Hoe (1605)

“Take three quarts of duck's milk…”

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–1991) Polish-born Jewish-American author

First words of a "recipe for high-priced cookies" in Stories for Children (1984)

“Alec muttered a retort into his coffee. It rhymed with something that sounded a lot more like "ducking glass mole.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Coffee

“Wise words are like arrows flung at your forehead. What do you do? Why, you duck of course.”

Steven Erikson book House of Chains

Source: House of Chains (2002)

“If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands.”

Douglas Adams book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987)

Family , Bird

“Was that you or the duck?”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

“Maybe we shouldn't be living this way, without grass and trees, and ducks, always under pressure, always trying to catch up, never enough time or energy for the things we love, if we can even remember what those things are.”

Meg Rosoff (1956) American-British children's writer

Source: Jonathan Unleashed

Love , Way , Tree , Grass

“I do not walk like a duck.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“Never trust a duck.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Variant: Bloodthirsty little beasts. Never trust a duck.
Source: Clockwork Angel

“Isabelle was holding an umbrella. It was clear plastic, decorated with decals of colorful flowers. It was one of the girliest things Simon had ever seen, and he didn’t blame Alec for ducking out from under it and taking his chances with the rain.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Color , Flowers , Chance

“Don't show it and don't panic. Do like the ducks; on the surface stay calm, and below it paddle lile hell”

Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol

Source: The Lost Symbol

Hell

“If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck!”

Robin Cook (1931–1994) English crime writer

Source: Crisis

“Let’s just say I understand betrayal. And having been where he is, I know the explosion to come. Trust me. ‘Duck’ won’t quite cover it. (Sin)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Devil May Cry

Understanding , Betrayal

“His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a duck's nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan's egg.”

Hans Christian Andersen The Ugly Duckling

Fairy Tales (1835)
Source: The Ugly Duckling

Beauty , Bird

“She smiled smugly. “We came to an agreement, the duck and I.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Smile

“What is that smell? (Nick)
(It was like three-day-old cat vomit mixed with rotten asparagus.)
Duck urine. It keeps the zombies from thinking I’m human. (Mark)
Yeah, well it keeps me from thinking you’re sane. (Nick)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

Cats , Thinking

“He took a duck in the face at 250 knots.”

William Gibson book Pattern Recognition

Source: Pattern Recognition

“I could dance with you till the cows come home. Better still, I'll dance with the cows and you come home."
Groucho Marx was never one to pass up an opportunity for a play on words and this occurs in his dialogue of the 1933 film Duck Soup:”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Home , Dance

“I am stronger when Tessa is here, you see. I told it to you," said Jem, still in the same soft voice.

At that, Will did duck his head so that Tessa could not see his eyes. "I see it," he said.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

“There's an epigram tacked to my office bulletin board, pinched from a magazine -- "Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pâté.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Source: Negotiating with the Dead

“One is never alone with a rubber duck.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

“The figure in the doorway ducked; the brick hit the wall, and Luke straightened up and looked at her curiously. I hope when we're married, that's not the way you greet me every day when I come home, he said.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Hope , Way , Home

“Duck was a neutral party, so he brought the ultimatum to the cows.”

Doreen Cronin book Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type

Source: Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type

“Rache! Glad you're… Tink loves a duck!" he said, wings clattering. "It stinks of sex in here. God, woman. I leave you alone for one night, and you're humping the ghost." - Jenks to Rachel”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Black Magic Sanction

Love , God , Sex , Night

“I swear on the Angel." He ducked his head down, kissed her cheek. "The hell with that. I swear on us.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Angels , Hell , Kiss

“She turned and looked at him. "Ducks?" she said again.
A smile tugged the edge of his mouth. "I hate ducks. Don't know why. I just always have.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Hate , Smile

“Tessa touched his wrist lightly with her hand. "Be brave," she said. "It's not a duck, is it?”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

“Well, yes, I call it the Expando-Duck. It's perfect if you need a small metal duck. Or a larger metal duck.”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

Perfection

“Charlie Asher: Mrs. Ling, is that duck wearing trousers?
Mrs. Ling: Could be…. You hear of paper-wrap chicken? This duck in pants.”

Christopher Moore book A Dirty Job

Source: A Dirty Job

“She's really gone, then. The little girl with the back of her shirt sticking out like a duck tail”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Girl

“He whines, he complains, he ducks out of the most obvious responsibility. He is vain, petty and maddening, but he doesn't ever quit.”

Megan Whalen Turner The King of Attolia

Source: The King of Attolia

“I don't have ugly ducklings turning into swans in my stories. I have ugly ducklings turning into confident ducks.”

Maeve Binchy (1940–2012) Irish novelist

Confidence

“Their oldest child, James, had spoken laughingly about Will's unrelenting fear of ducks and his continual battle to keep them out of the pond at the family home in Yorkshire.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Fear , Family , Home

“It doesn't matter if you're born in a duck yard, so long as you are hatched from a swan's egg!”

Hans Christian Andersen The Ugly Duckling

Source: The Ugly Duckling

“Then I lost him for a brief period of time, and by the time I caught up with him, he had wandered into Hyde Park, waded into the Serpetine, spread his arms wide, and was shouting, 'Ducks, embrace me as your king!”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Midnight Heir

Time

“I shall never eat duck again. I cannot believe I used to like duck. The duck betrayed me.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Vampires, Scones, and Edmund Herondale

“Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit…. They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Men , Star , Success , Falseness

“There was a certain history to this. While heavily pregnant with Amelia, she had asked him if she was radiant or if she just looked like a waddling duck. He told her she’d looked like a radiant duck. This had not been the correct answer.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After

History

“Artemis ducked. Cudgeon didn't. Guess what? Artemis was smarter.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

“What problems?" "Well for starters.. you're an evil duck killer.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

Problem , Evil

“There is one order of beauty which seems made to turn heads. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle.”

George Eliot book Adam Bede

Source: Adam Bede

Beauty , Baby

“There are two kinds of people,’ she’d said. ‘Those who coast through life like ducks in a row, following one after the other, and those who ride the waves.’” Tears spilled down my cheeks, and my voice cracked. “‘Ride the waves, baby, and live. Live.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Oh My Goth

Life , People , Tear , Baby

“They would all be sorry… particularly the duck.”

Angie Sage (1952) English author and illustrator

“I swear on the Angel.” He ducked his head down, kissed her cheek. “The hell with that.
I swear on us.”
Clary wound her fingers into the sleeve of his T-shirt. “Why us?”
“Because there isn’t anything I believe in more.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Angels , Hell , Kiss

“Kinky sex involves the use of duck feathers. Perverted sex involves the whole duck.”

Lewis Grizzard (1946–1994) American journalist

Sex

“The paper does not provide the exact number of penises eaten by ducks, but the author says there have been enough over the years to prompt the coining of a popular saying: 'I better get home or the ducks will have something to eat.”

Mary Roach book Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

Source: Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

Home

“Microsoft has had two goals. One was to copy the Mac and the other was to copy Lotus' success in the spreadsheet. And over the course of the last 10 years, Microsoft accomplished both of those goals. And now they are completely lost.
They were able to copy the Mac because the Mac was frozen in time. The Mac didn't change much for the last 10 years. It changed maybe 10 percent. It was a sitting duck. It's amazing that it took Microsoft 10 years to copy something that was a sitting duck. Apple, unfortunately, doesn't deserve too much sympathy. They invested hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars into R&D, but very little came out They produced almost no new innovation since the original Mac itself.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

Steve Jobs, "Steve Jobs in 1994: The Rolling Stone Interview" https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/steve-jobs-in-1994-the-rolling-stone-interview-20110117 June 16, 1994, reprinted in Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone, January 17, 2011
1990s, Rolling Stone interview (1994)

Change , Time , Success

“Looking back at this period (1965-1967), I have often wondered why General Taylor was seemingly unable to convince President Johnson that the U. S. strategy was a losing one. Taylor had been successively President Kennedy's special adviser, chairman of the JCS, U. S. ambassador to Saigon, and President Johnson's special consultant. (Taylor calls this latter position a "lame duck" consultant, partially answering my question.) Clearly Taylor not only knew the problems and pitfalls but also was in a position to wield great influence. The nagging question, though, remains- why was he not more successful in bringing about a sounder strategic approach to the war?”

Bruce Palmer Jr. (1913–2000) United States Army Chief of Staff

Source: The 25-Year War: America's Military Role in Vietnam (1984), p. 45

War , Question , Problem , Success

“In the first-half we were like the Dog and Duck, in the second-half we were like Real Madrid. We can't go on like that. At full-time I was at them like an irritated Jack Russell.”

Ian Holloway (1963) English association football player and manager

Happy Holloways - the crazy quotes which defined football in 2010, Goal.com, James, Daly, 2010-12-30, 2011-04-29 http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2896/premier-league/2010/12/30/2277614/happy-holloways-the-crazy-quotes-which-defined-football-in,
Sourced quotes

Dogs , Time

“All along the backwater,
Through the rushes tall,
Ducks are a-dabbling,
Up tails all!”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 2, "The Open Road"

“I’m a huge lover of animals. My mother wasn’t the best, but despite an abusive childhood, we always had a lot of pets growing up. I was basically raised on a farm with horses, chickens, ducks and cats. We did a lot of rescuing. At early age, I became a vegetarian. There was a lot of resistance from family — “It will stunt your growth. It can’t be healthy.””

Corey Feldman (1971) American actor

… Going vegetarian at such a young age, it was a stance for myself.
"Corey Feldman brings Lost Boys Ball, Truth Movement to House of Blues" https://lasvegasweekly.com/blogs/luxe-life/2010/oct/21/corey-feldman-brings-lost-boys-ball-truth-movement/, interview with the Las Vegas Weekly (October 21, 2010).

Age , Family , Cats , Lovers

“Babe] also inspired me to become vegan. After having worked all morning with these extraordinary animals, I'd see their relatives on the lunch table. They had ham and duck, every animal except horse. That's when I said, "I've got to try to be a vegan." And for the most part, I have been vegan since 1994. [You were vegetarian before Babe. What inspired that change? ] I rode across the country on a motorcycle in 1975. I remember it was the worst time of year and bloody cold. When I was going through Texas, I went through the feedlots, which I had never seen before. It was a very sobering sight—heartbreaking and awful. It's a corporate system completely out of touch with what is sustainable, what is humane, what is compassionate. At the time, I didn't even know what a vegetarian was. I just thought, "I can't eat [animals] anymore."”

James Cromwell (1940) American actor and producer

"The Tale of an Unprejudiced Heart: An Interview with James Cromwell" http://www.humanesociety.org/news/magazines/2015/01-02/unprejudiced-heart-interview-with-babe-actor-james-cromwell.html by The Humane Society of the United States (17 December 2014)

Change , Time , Animals , Horse

“She just took off running to the old Perkins place. He couldn't help turning to watch. She ran as though it was her nature. It reminded him of the flight of wild ducks in the autumn. So smooth. The word "beautiful" came to his mind, but he shook it away and hurried up to his house.”

Katherine Paterson book Bridge to Terabithia

Jesse Aarons
Bridge to Terabithia (1977)

Beauty , Autumn , Nature , Help

“Anates tuas in acie instrue.
Get your ducks in a row.”

Henry N. Beard book Latin for All Occasions

Latin for All Occasions (1990)

“She was one of those who could talk and talk and talk. Gair listened to her harsh voice - "Just like a duck," Ayna described it - and hoped she would lose the argument. But Adara once said Kasta had never lost an argument in her life. She just talked everyone insensible.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Power of Three

Source: Power of Three (1976), p. 108.

Life , Hope

“Watching George Romney run for the presidency was like watching a duck try to make love to a football.”

Jim Rhodes

http://archive.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/06/24/privilege_tragedy_and_a_young_leader/?page=10

Love , Making love , Football

“Young, blond fags with powder-blue eyes and soft shoes skipped along arm-in-arm. Chinese girls with long hair and black stockings carried metal pots into Ernie’s Delicatessen for bean cake, barbequed duck, Chinese curds and steamed rice. Art students from the Art Institute, draftsmen from Heald’s College and law students from S. F. Law School walked by in carefree abandon, none of them in pain, all with beautiful girls in red slippers. They had leather, beads and books and pipes and scabs of hair on their interesting faces. Polk Street at night was always Christmas Eve for lonely men such as myself.”

Oscar Zeta Acosta book Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo

Source: Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), p. 51.

Men , Pain , Books , School

“As in hunting, so in hawking, the sportsmen had their peculiar impressions, and therefore the tyro in the art of falconry is recommended to learn the following arrangement of terms as they were to be applied to the different kinds of birds assembled in companies. A sege of herons, and of bitterns; an herd of swans, of cranes, and of curlews; a dopping of sheldrakes; a spring of teels; a covert of cootes; a gaggle of geese; a badelynge of ducks; a sord or sute of mallards; a muster of peacoccks; a nye of pheasants; a bevy of quails; a covey of partridges; a congregation of plovers; a flight of doves; a dule of turtles; a walk of snipes; a fall of woodcocks; a brood of hens; a building of rooks; a murmuration of starlings; an exaltation of larks; a flight of swallows; a host of sparrows; a watch of nightingales; and a charm of goldfinches.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 37
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Collective nouns

Art , Spring , Bird , Learning

“I can’t imagine that a Republican majority in the United States Senate would want to confirm, in a lame duck session, a nominee opposed by the National Rifle Association”

Mitch McConnell (1942) US Senator from Kentucky, Senate Majority Leader

McConnell On SCOTUS Vacancy http://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=503FB2A5-205C-4F6F-9BCE-A4473809A4DB on "Fox News Sunday" as Majority Leader of the Senate dismissing the possibility of considering the Supreme Court nominee Merrick B. Garland even after the elections in November (March 20, 2016)
2016

Imagination

“I am still at the crease, though the bowling has been pretty hostile of late. And in case anyone doubted it, can I assure you there will be no ducking the bouncers, no stonewalling, no playing for time. The bowling's going to get hit all round the ground. That is my style.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Lord Mayor's Banquet at Guildhall (12 November 1990) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=108241
Third term as Prime Minister

Hostility , Time

“I wonder how many men, hiding their youngness, rise as I do, Saturday mornings, filled with the hope that Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam and Daffy Duck will be there waiting as our one true always and forever salvation?”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

"Why Cartoons Are Forever", Los Angeles Times (3 December 1989)

Men , Hope , Waiting

“Backbenchers are devalued. Their role is diminished. No-one even knows who they are unless they turn up on the front page of a newspaper because the taxpayer has been footing the bill for their duck house.”

Gyles Brandreth (1948) British writer, broadcaster and former Member of Parliament

Interview The Scotsman, 2010

Housing

“If it came on the evening news tonight that there were five grizzly bears roaming around Cobb County, do you know what would happen by six o'clock in the morning? They would all be dead. Because every redneck in four states would be out there with a rifle, trying to shoot one, right? And whoever could shoot the biggest one would be a hero. They would have his picture on the front page, "Bubba shot the Grizzly Bear" and saved the village. That is exactly what happened to the dragons. If you could figure out a way to kill a dragon, they would be telling stories about you around the campfire. People killed dragons for meat, because they were a menace, to prove that you were a hero, or to prove that you are superior, in competition for land, or for medicinal purposes. Many ancient recipes call for dragon blood, dragon bones, dragon saliva, why? Gilgamesh is famous for slaying a dragon. A Chinese legend tells about a guy named Yu that surveyed the land of China. It says, that after the Flood he surveyed the land, he divided it off into sections. He built channels to drain water off to sea and make the land livable again. Many snakes and dragons were driven from the marshlands. You know that's normal that if you want to build a city. You have to drive off the dragons, then build your city. It was expected that you have got to drive the dragons away or kill them. Why would the Chinese calendar have eleven real animals: the pig, the duck, the dog, and … the dragon? Why would they put just one "mythical" animal in there? Could it be at the time they that they came up with these animals there were 12 real animals? There is one of the oldest pieces of pottery on Planet Earth. It's a piece of slate from Egypt; the first dynasty of United Egypt. It shows long necked dragons […] Why would they put long necked dinosaurs on pottery 3,800 years ago? Here are two long necked dinosaurs with a sheep in between them in their mouths. Here is a hippo tusk from the twelve century B. C., showing an animal with a long neck, and a long tail. Here's a cylinder seal, showing what appears quite obviously to be a long neck dinosaur. The Bible talks about a fiery flying serpent, in Isaiah 14.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), Dinosaurs and the Bible

People , Dogs , Way , Guy

“All primitive people thought that a lunatic was possessed by a spirit. When his incoherent words more or less accord with the moral prejudices of the time, the spirit is a good one, and the man i s a saint. In the opposite case, the spirit is evil and the man must be suppressed. It is just according to the time and place and the doctors, whether a prophetess would be worshipped as a priestess or ducked as a witch. Innumerable violent lunatics have escaped the cells, thanks to the War, and their very violence has made heroes of them. And in every Parliament there are at least five or six undisputed idiots who got elected for their madness through the admiration of their constituents.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble)

War , People , Evil , Time

“Once you turn forty…the whole world is water off a duck’s back. Once you turn forty you realize that life is there to be wasted.”

Geoff Dyer (1958) English writer

Source: Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It (1993), p. 165

Life , World , Water

“Assigning human personalities to animals is the chief trait of the pet owner—the doting dog-lover with his baby talk, the smug stay-at-home with a fat lump of fur on her lap who says, "Me, I'm a cat person," and the granny who puts her nose against the tin cage and makes kissing noises at her parakeet. Their affection is often tinged with a sense of superiority. Deer and duck hunters never talk this way about their prey, though big game hunters— Hemingway is the classic example — often sentimentalize the creatures they blow to bits and then lovingly stuff to hang on the wall.”

Paul Theroux (1941) American travel writer and novelist

Living With Geese.

Dogs , Way , Home , Game

“When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck,
Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck,
Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck
And march to your front like a soldier.
Front, front, front like a soldier…”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Young British Soldier, Stanza 9.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“When you fell in the sea, you should have heard them cheer. I made them rope the yard and fish you up. I said a ducking in water washes the witch-skill out of a woman until next full moon, and it would be bad luck to let you drown. How about that for a clever story? They’d believe anything if you make it sound silly enough.”

Tanith Lee (1947–2015) British writer

Source: Short fiction, The Winter Players (1976), Chapter 3, “Red Ship” (p. 136)

Bad luck , Fish , Water , Sea

“I used to think the world was flat
Rarely threw my hat into the crowd
I felt I had used up my quota of yearning
Used to look in on the children at night
In the glow of their Donald Duck light
And frighten myself with the thought of my little ones burning But ooh, the tide is turning
The tide is turning.”

Roger Waters (1943) English songwriter, bassist, and lyricist of Pink Floyd

"The Tide Is Turning (After Live Aid)", on Radio K.A.O.S. (1987) - Full lyrics at LyricWiki http://lyrics.wikia.com/Roger_Waters:The_Tide_Is_Turning_(After_Live_Aid) · Tour performance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66nqhVtq6xo · Video 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvTvWJWeQ2g Live in Berlin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFWCAYPWFbs

Children , World , Thinking , Light

“Today we decide about metaphysics and about even more elevated things at philosophy conferences. For everything that is to be done these days we must first have a meeting, and here is how it works: people come together, constantly come together, and they all wait for one another to turn up so that the others will tell them how it is, and if it doesn’t get said, never mind, everyone has had their say. It may very well be that all the talkers who are having their say have understood little of the matter in question, but still we believe that if we accumulate all that misunderstanding something like understanding will leap forth at the end of the day. Thus there are people today who travel from one meeting to the next and who are sustained by the confidence that something is really happening, that they’ve actually done something; whereas, at bottom, they’ve merely ducked out of work, seeking in chatter a place to build a nest for their helplessness—a helplessness, it is true, that they will never understand.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

Gesamtausgabe, 20:376, as translated by David Farrell Krell in Portraits of American Continental Philosophers (1999), p. 101

People , Travel , Confidence , Understanding

“Treasure maps; Czarist bonds; a case of stuffed dodos; Scarlett O'Hara's birth certificate; two flattened and deformed silver bullet heads in an old matchbox; Baedeker's guide to Atlantis (seventeenth edition, 1902); the autograph score of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, with Das Ende written neatly at the foot of the last page; three boxes of moon rocks; a dumpy, heavy statuette of a bird covered in dull black paint, which reminded him of something but he couldn't remember what; a Norwich Union life policy in the name of Vlad Dracul; a cigar box full of oddly shaped teeth, with CAUTION: DO NOT DROP painted on the lid in hysterical capitals; five or six doll's-house-sized books with titles like Lilliput On $2 A Day; a small slab of green crystal that glowed when he opened the envelope; a thick bundle of love letters bound in blue ribbon, all signed Margaret Roberts; a left-luggage token from North Central railway terminus, Ruritania; Bartholomew's Road Atlas of Oz (one page, with a yellow line smack down the middle); a brown paper bag of solid gold jelly babies; several contracts for the sale and purchase of souls; a fat brown envelope inscribed To Be Opened On My Death: E. A. Presley, unopened; Oxford and Cambridge Board O-level papers in Elvish language and literature, 1969-85; a very old drum in a worm-eaten sea-chest marked F. Drake, Plymouth, in with a load of minute-books and annual accounts of the Winchester Round Table; half a dozen incredibly ugly portraits of major Hollywood film stars; Unicorn-Calling, For Pleasure & Profit by J. R. Hartley; a huge collection of betting slips, on races to be held in the year 2019; all water, as far as Paul was concerned, off a duck's {back]”

Tom Holt (1961) British writer

The Portable Door (2003)

Love , Life , Death , Pleasure

“Always do that, wild ducks do. They shoot to the bottom as deep as they can get, sir — and bite themselves fast in the tangle and seaweed — and all the devil's own mess that grows down there. And they never come up again.”

Henrik Ibsen The Wild Duck

Ekdal, Act II
The Wild Duck (1884)

“I figure as the 'duck' in the 'Adventures.”

Robinson Duckworth (1834–1911) British priest

The Lewis Carroll Picture Book (1899), p. 360

“Knowledge or no knowledge, the intelligence community is obliged to furnish estimates to military planners, even if they’re worthless and very possibly misleading. If you are one of those strange ducks trying to understand what this nuclear business is all about and read the “respectable” journals the CIA leaks information to, please don’t get the idea this makes you a more respectable arm chair analyst than anyone else.”

Samuel T. Cohen (1921–2010) American physicist

F*** You! Mr. President: Confessions of the Father of the Neutron Bomb (2006)

Intelligence , Communication , Idea , Understanding

“Thank you. How-DY! Whoops, wrong opera house. How do you like the play, Mr. Lincoln? Duck!”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

A Night at the Met (1986)

Housing

“I depart 105 finally lifting my foot of the throat of my eternal subordinate the Thai Duck Wanheng Menayothin, who showed exceptional survival skills best found in healthy women, wellbred slaves & the offspring of submissive prostitutes.”

Ali Raymi (1973–2015) Boxing Knockout Artist

As quoted in "Ali Raymi announces move to flyweight" by Robert Coster, at FightNews (8 September 2014) http://www.fightnews.com/Boxing/ali-raymi-announces-move-to-flyweight-260235

Women

“.. and to think now that great mathematicians find my work interesting because I am able to illustrate their theories. They can not imagine that I was such a bad pupil in mathematics. I don't understand it myself neither. I never could understand why it was necessary to prove something that everyone already sees. I saw it, I knew it, so it is how it is… But yes, you had to prove it. I did overcome it when I realized I can make something else - I thought I was a good-for-nothing. In my family there were no other artists to find... I was just a weird duck, right?”

M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch graphic artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van M.C. Escher, in het Nederlands): En als je nu bedenkt dat grote wiskundigen mijn werk interessant vinden, omdat ik in staat ben hun theorieën te illustreren. Ze kunnen zich helemaal niet voorstellen dat ik zo slecht was in wiskunde. Ik snap er zelf ook niets van. Ik begreep niet dat je iets moest bewijzen wat iedereen ziet. Ik zag het, ik wist, het is toch zo.. .Maar jawel hoor, je moest het bewijzen. Ik ben er bovenuit gekomen toen ik me realiseerde, dat ik wat anders kon. Ik dacht, dat ik een nietsnut was. Ik kom uit een milieu waar geen artiesten in waren.. ..Ik was een rare eend in de bijt, he?
1960's, M.C. Escher, interviewed by Bibeb', 1968

Family , Imagination , Mathematics , Understanding

“I think he was greeted when he arrived at the hotel in Brazil by a topless model and a guy dressed as Donald Duck.”

Ian Darke (1950) British association football and boxing commentator

United States v. Portugal https://web.archive.org/web/20140706035347/http://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2014/6/22/5832892/ian-darke-cristiano-ronaldo-topless-model-donald-duck (22 June 2014).
2010s, 2014, 2014 FIFA World Cup

Guy , Thinking

“See that officer out in front? Soon as his shadow hits that lil' spruce there, he's meetin' his maker. That's what I say. 'Nen after him, I start in on'na rest of 'em. Look at them all lined up! Waddlin' along one after the other like sittin' ducks. Poor bastards! Don't know what's about'ta hit 'em. Pretty soon you're gonna see how the Lord takes His own. Now, You lissen up up there, ol' man! If any a those fella's sinned, You take mercy on him, hear? Be quick now! They're gonna start headin' up to you soon.”

Väinö Linna book The Unknown Soldier

Rokka preparing to ambush a Soviet unit, p. 277.
The Unknown Soldier

“Leading from the front: It’s what built America. But these days, the federal government isn’t at the front – it’s cowering in the back corner of the room, ducking responsibility and hoping no one notices.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://mikebloomberg.com/en/issues/public_health/mayor_bloomberg_delivers_opening_address_at_ceasefire_bridging_the_political_divide_conference
State of America

Hope

“Honey, I just forgot to duck.”

Jack Dempsey (1895–1983) American boxer

To his wife on losing the world heavyweight title (September 23, 1926) - quoted by Ronald Reagan in 1981

“In retrospect I would say from Donald Duck I have learned more about life than from all the schools I ever attended.”

Gottfried Helnwein (1948) Austrian photographer and painter

Memories of Duckburg, http://www.helnwein.com/texte/helnweintexts/artikel_398.html, Zeit Magazin, Hamburg, 1989

Life , School , Learning

“The swarm of ducks so darkens the sky that poor Europe does not know which way to go”

Honoré Daumier (1808–1879) French printmaker, caricaturist, painter, and sculptor

original French text: 'La nuée des canards obscurcissant tellement l'air que la pauvre Europe ne sait plus quel chemin prendre'
title/caption in Daumier's print; published in 'La Caricature', 1833-35; number 3601 in the catalogue raisonné by Loys Delteil, Le peintre-graveur illustré, Vol. 28 (New York: Da Capo Press, 1969); as quoted on samfoxschool http://samfoxschool.wustl.edu/node/11263#footnote-1-ref
The word 'canards' refers to physical ducks; it also means unfounded rumors or exaggerated stories. Ducks, symbolizing rumors was a visual motif Daumier used both before and after this print
1830's

Way

“Yes, of course you want every shot to be a duck-bird [a dead bird? ]”

Johannes Warnardus Bilders (1811–1890) painter from the Northern Netherlands

version in original Dutch: Ja ja, gij zoudt wel willen dat ieder schot een eendvogel was. (wanneer een schilderij niet bevredigend eindigde)
Quoted by Maria Bilders-van Bosse, in her letter to A.C. Loffelt, 23 June 1895; from an excerpt of this letter https://rkd.nl/nl/explore/excerpts/763 in RKD-Archive, The Hague
his comment, when a painting was not good, at the end
posthumous quotes

Bird , Dead