Ocean Quotes (page 19)
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever i find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet... I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
Herman Melville
I love all things, not because they are passionate or sweet-smellingbut because, I don't know, becausethis ocean is yours, and mine: these buttonsand wheelsand littleforgottentreasures, fans uponwhose featherslove has scatteredits blossoms, glasses, knives and scissors --all bearthe traceof someone's fingerson their handle or surface, the trace of a distant handlostin the depths of forgetfulness.
Pablo Neruda
and soon enough his head would be swimming with tales of derring-do and high adventure, tales of beautiful maidens kissed, of evildoers shot with pistols or fought with swords, of bags of gold, of diamonds as big as the tip of your thumb, of lost cities and of vast mountains, of steam-trains and clipper ships, of pampas, oceans, deserts, tundra.
Neil Gaiman
A certain person wondered whya big strong girl like mewouldn't keep a jobwhich paid a normal salary. I took my time to lead herand to read her every page. Even minimal peoplecan't survive on minimal wage. A certain person wondered why. I wait all week for you. I didn't have the wordsto describe just what you do. I said you had the motionof the ocean in your walk, and when you solve my riddlesyou don't even have to talk.
Maya Angelou
Hazel used his trick. "They got no starfish there?"They got no ocean there" said Doc."Oh!" said Hazel and he cast frantically about for a peg to hang a new question on. He hated to have a conversation die out like this. He wasn't quick enough. While he was looking for a question Doc asked one. Hazel hated that, it meant casting about in his mind for an answer and casting about in Hazel's mind was like wandering alone in a deserted museum. Hazel's mind was choked with uncataloged exhibits. ...
John Steinbeck
What we see as death,
empty space, or nothingness is only the trough between the crests of this
endlessly waving ocean. It is all part of the illusion that there should
seem to be something to be gained in the future, and that there is an
urgent necessity to go on and on until we get it. Yet just as there is no
time but the present, and no one except the all-and-everything, there is
never anything to be gained—though the zest of the game is to pretend
that there is.
Alan Watts
It was an evening of torment, and I remember only one other thing about it. At some point after everyone was asleep, I wandered away from the inn in a daze and ended up on the sea cliffs, staring out into the darkness with sound of the roaring water below me. The thundering of the ocean was like a bitter lament. I seemed to see beneath everything a layering of cruelty I have never known was there. The howling of the wind and shaking of the trees seemed to mock me. Could it really be that the...
Arthur Golden
Matthew and Lucinda felt at the exact edge of their lives, feeling them close, closer, as near at hand as yet elusive as the wind that whistled in their hair: the true complete lives in which they would at last drown, the oceanic voyage into their thirties and beyond, through which their inchoate yearnings would either be soothed or disappointed, or both.
Jonathan Lethem
What hands are here? ha! they pluck out mine eyes! Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.” “My hands are of your colour; but I shame to wear a heart so white. A little water clears us of this deed: How easy it is then! Your constancy hath left you unattended.
William Shakespeare