Treading Water Quotes

• "Getting fired," Tyler says, "is the best thing that could happen to any of us. That way, we’d quit treading water and do something with our lives."

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Water, Way, Quitting

  Chuck Palahniuk (2011). “Fight Club”, p.83, Random House

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• Promise me you will not spend so much time treading water and trying to keep your head above the waves that you forget, truly forget, how much you have always loved to swim.

  Tyler Knott Gregson

  Water, Psychology, Swim

  16 Copy quote

• In the story of Ugly Duckling, when did the Ugly Duckling stop feeling Ugly? When he realized that he was a Swan. Each of us has something Special, a swan of some sort, hidden inside somewhere. But until we recognize that it's there, what can we do but splash around, treading water? The Wise are Who They Are. They work with what they've got and do what they can do.

  Benjamin Hoff

  Wise, Swans, Ugly Duckling

  26 Copy quote

• I believe in work. If somebody doesn't create something, however small it may be, he gets sick. An awful lot of people feel that they're treading water -- that if they vanished in smoke, it wouldn't mean anything at all in this world. And that's a despairing and destructive feeling. It'll kill you.

  Arthur Miller

  Work, Believe, Mean

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• Metaphors are our way of losing ourselves in semblances or treading water in a sea of seeming.

  Roberto Bolano

  Sea, Water, Way

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• Inside I'm treading waters steady tryna swim ashore.

  Drake

  Success, Humble, Swimming

  5 Copy quote

• One of the reasons for putting yourself on the line, is that life is not simply treading water... I always felt that once you reach a certain point, you have to try and move ahead.

  Dick Button

  Moving, Water, Trying

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• People are very adamant about maintaining a certain sound or a certain era, like, "There were three years of rap that were great, so let's just keep doing that." The genre itself is just stuck in place. It's been treading water for a while.

  Aesop Rock

  Rap, Years, People

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• Generally, it's not good to be engaged directly with the political system unless you are qualified. It`s a very depressing business, the way politics works. You get stuck into it, but then, at some point, you have to walk away. I had to walk away, because it's like this dark, black energy void. There are some people who have dedicated their lives to living in that energy void, but I can't do it. I just can't go there. It feels like you're treading water too much when you do. It's a crazy thing.

  Thom Yorke

  Depressing, Crazy, Dark

  "Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Ed O'Brien". Interview with Chris Mincher, music.avclub.com. July 01, 2008.

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• I ain't never been in no college with famous people. I was a drifter for a while. I just was desperate to fit in with a group. Really, I was swimming. I was lost, treading water, trying to find my way. I wanted to play football. It didn't work out. I didn't really know what I wanted until I found acting in a theater department, and then everything just fell into place, and I had a passion about something. Then, I started living my life.

  John Goodman

  Football, Passion, Swimming

  Source: www.moviesonline.ca

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• Any mother with half a skull knows that when Daddy's little boy becomes Mommy's little boy, the kid is so wet he's treading water.

  Erma Bombeck

  Mother, Kids, Boys

  Erma Bombeck (1997). “Forever, Erma: Best-Loved Writing From America's Favorite Humorist”, p.5, Andrews McMeel Publishing

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• Within your own generation-the same songs, the same wars, the same attitudes toward those wars, the same rules and radio shows in the air-you can gauge the possibilities and impossibilities. With a person of another generation, you are treading water, playing with fire.

  John Updike

  Song, Attitude, War

  John Updike (2010). “Rabbit at Rest”, p.462, Random House

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• Nobody wanted your dance, Nobody wanted your strange glitter, your floundering Drowning life and your effort to save yourself, Treading water, dancing the dark turmoil, Looking for something to give.

  Ted Hughes

  Dark, Giving, Dancing

  Ted Hughes (2009). “Birthday Letters”, p.29, Faber & Faber

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• I find now, swallowing one teaspoon of pain, that it drops downward to the past where it mixes with last year’s cupful and downward into a decade’s quart and downward into a lifetime’s ocean. I alternate treading water and deadman’s float.

  Anne Sexton

  Pain, Ocean, Past

  Anne Sexton (1976). “45 Mercy Street”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

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• Lord Maccon, being Lord Maccon and good at such things, then changed, right there in the Thames, from dog-paddling wolf to large man treading water. He did so flawlessly, so that his head never went under the water. Professor Lyall suspected him of practicing such maneuvers in the bathtub.

  Gail Carriger

  Dog, Men, Water

  7 Copy quote