Boats Quotes

“I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it's because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it's because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea - whether it is to sail or to watch it - we are going back from whence we came.

[Remarks at the Dinner for the America's Cup Crews, September 14 1962]”
― John F. Kennedy

“To reach a port we must set sail –
Sail, not tie at anchor
Sail, not drift.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt

“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 Buffet

“Rosencrantz: We might as well be dead. Do you think death could possibly be a boat?
Guildenstern: No, no, no... Death is...not. Death isn't. You take my meaning. Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not-be on a boat.
Rosencrantz: I've frequently not been on boats.
Guildenstern: No, no, no--what you've been is not on boats.”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“I spent uncounted hours sitting at the bow looking at the water and the sky, studying each wave, different from the last, seeing how it caught the light, the air, the wind; watching patterns, the sweep of it all, and letting it take me.
The sea.”
― Gary Paulsen, Caught by the Sea

“A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.”
― Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“There’s nothing––absolutely nothing––half so much worth doing as messing about in boats.”
― Kenneth Grahame, Wind in the Willows

“...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, Caught by the Sea

“How do men act on a sinking ship? Do they hold each other? Do they pass around the whisky? Do they cry?”
― Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea

“Thing about boats is, you can always sell them if you don't like them. Can't sell kids.”
― Lin Pardey, Bull Canyon: A Boatbuilder, a Writer and Other Wildlife

“Are you watching the boats?" Cornelia guessed. She craned her neck to see if there was any excitement on the river.
Heavens no, I'm spying on people," Virginia responded unrepentantly.
-Cornelia E and Virginia Somerset”
― Lesley M.M. Blume, Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters

“White-crested waves crash on the shore. The masts sway violently, every which way. In the gray sky the gulls are circling like white flakes. Rain squalls blow past like gray slanting sails, and blue gaps open in the sky. The air brightens.
A cold silvery evening. The moon is overhead, and down below, in the water; and all around it-a wide frame of old, hammered, scaly silver. Etched on the silver-silent black fishing boats, tiny black needles of masts, little black men casting invisible lines into the silver. And the only sounds are the occasional plashing of an oar, the creaking of an oarlock, the springlike leap and flip-flop of a fish. ("The North")”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, The Dragon: Fifteen Stories

“It takes just one wave to capsize a boat, and one more to take it down.”
― Federico Chini, The Sea Of Forgotten Memories

“I couldn't help wondering where porpoises had learned this game of running on the bows of ships. Porpoises have been swimming in the oceans for seven to ten million years, but they've had human ships to play with for only the last few thousand. Yet nearly all porpoises, in every ocean, catch rides for fun from passing ships; and they were doing it on the bows of Greek triremes and prehistoric Tahitian canoes, as soon as those seacraft appeared. What did they do for fun before ships were invented?
Ken Norris made a field observation one day that suggests the answer. He saw a humpback whale hurrying along the coast of the island of Hawaii, unavoidably making a wave in front of itself; playing in that bow wave was a flock of bottlenose porpoises. The whale didn't seem to be enjoying it much: Ken said it looked like a horse being bothered by flies around its head; however, there was nothing much the whale could do about it, and the porpoises were having a fun time. ”
― Karen Pryor, Lads Before the Wind: Diary of a Dolphin Trainer

“I had no fear of the stream's perils, and I listened with the greatest contentment to the quiet slap of water on rocks, the running whisper of the current, and the taps and creaks and croaks that rose with the mist around me. Overhead swing the glittering stars, and the bright moon shone down and lit the curling ripples of the water. At no time in my life had I been in greater danger from the elements, and yet if I learned that heaven is such as that night was, I should deem it a joy worth the dying.”
― Clare B. Dunkle, The House of Dead Maids

“I grew to judge every purchase by how many bronze screws I could buy for the boat if I didn't spend on this or made do without that.”
― Lin Pardey, Bull Canyon: A Boatbuilder, a Writer and Other Wildlife

“Boating, my dear Mrs. Bedel, is the dullest of all things; don't you think so? Because a boat looks very pretty from the shore, we fancy that the shore must look very pretty from a boat; and when we try it, we find we have only got down into a pit and can see nothing rightly. For my part, I hate boating and I hate the water...”
― Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, The Haunted Baronet and Others: Ghost Stories 1861-70

“The Vikings thought they were big shots because they had boats. You know how obnoxious people get when they own a boat. They always want to go on the boat. "We're taking the boat out this weekend. It's supposed to be beautiful. Why don't you come? You never come. You're always working. You know how many people wish they would get invited to come on the boat? And you turn it down.”
― Colin Quinn, The Coloring Book: A Comedian Solves Race Relations in America

“If the water is calm, the boat is also calm! If your thoughts are calm, your life is also calm!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“I'm a murderbot, I don't give a crap about boats.”
― Martha Wells, Network Effect

“Med människor i en liten båt sker något sällsamt. Vad de upplever är att de känner sig ensamma. Vad de känner är att de är ensamma tillsammans, tillsammans med de andra i båten. Därför uppstår mellan människor i små båtar en tillfällig tillgivenhet. Man har ju bara varandra och djupa vatten är skrämmande och små båtar är mycket bräckliga. Var och en blir den andres livboj. Är inte du rädd så inte är jag det.”
― Stig Dagerman, A Burnt Child

“The sea, once it casts it's spell, holds one in it's net of wonder forever.”
― Jacques Cousteau

“I don't mind getting a job, but You need to understand that I have an 80 foot motor yacht on my Vision board.”
― Dmitry Dyatlov

“Do not call anyone "mate" unless you have served on a boat with them.”
― Susan Branch, A Fine Romance: Falling in Love with the English Countryside

“The centrepiece of any Seaside Holiday is a Promenade along the Pier, a clever innovation which permits holidaymakers to enjoy the sense of being at sea without the inconvenience of actually setting foot aboard a boat.”
― Elizabeth C. Bunce, How to Get Away with Myrtle

“Unless you're a boat strong enough to make fun of big waves, you should know your place and show respect to the stronger one by getting out of his way!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Maybe we can explain the fact that a boat does not sink even though it is loaded enough to sink, with the existential resistance of a person who does not fall to the ground even though he is loaded enough to collapse to the ground!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“The first boats clearly defined the fall zone, rippling on the water, caked with dirt and filings of iron collected over the years from the rumbling bridge. The bill for the stoppage of these boats condemned them to abandonment. Some were moored strangely or had awkward railings protruding from them, so you needed to be careful when walking along the narrow pier below the promenade of glamour and relaxation. You had to pay attention to everything, at the same time, affirm your charm and carelessness only.”
― Mordawska Beata

“I'm not great at solving puzzles or riddles. Especially those riddles where you have to ride boats back and forth with foxes, geese, and sacks of grain. The fox would eat everything and I would starve.”
― Glen Nesbitt, BREAK OUT OF HEAVEN

“How nice it is to be us, Big Bear thought. Two brown bears in two fine boats sailing on a blue, blue lake.
And he was happy.”
― Eve Bunting, Big Bear's Big Boat