Drowning Quotes - Page 8

• In the vocabulary of certain radical theorists contradictions are given the status of some deadly disease to which their opponents alone can succumb. But contradictions are the very stuff of life. If there had been a little dash of contradiction among the Gadarene swine some of them might have been saved from drowning.

  Chinua Achebe

  Vocabulary, Disease, Opponents

  Chinua Achebe (1988). “Anthills of the Savannah”, p.100, Heinemann

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• ... sometimes you have to deal / Devilishly with drowning men in order to swim them to shore.

  Gwendolyn Brooks

  Men, Order, Swim

  Gwendolyn Brooks (2005). “The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks”, p.40, Library of America

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• Republicans are people who, if you were drowning 50 feet from shore, would throw you a 25-foot rope and tell you to swim the other 25 feet because it would be good for your character. Democrats would throw you a hundred-foot rope and then walk away looking for other good deeds to do.

  S. I. Hayakawa

  Character, Feet, People

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• If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Justice, Ifs

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.288, Simon and Schuster

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• If any of my competitors were drowning, I'd stick a hose in their mouth and turn on the water. It is ridiculous to call this an industry. This is not. This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I'll kill 'em, and I'm going to kill 'em before they kill me. You're talking about the American way - of survival of the fittest.

  Ray Kroc

  Dog, Talking, Water

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• Charity is the drowning of justice in the craphole of mercy.

  Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi

  Justice, Charity, Mercy

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• People today are in danger of drowning in information; but, because they have been taught that information is useful, they are more willing to drown than they need be. If they could handle information, they would not have to drown at all.

  Idries Shah

  People, Needs, Information

  Idries Shah (1983). “Reflections”, p.11, Octagon Press Ltd

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• Most people go to the office and sit at a desk. When firefighters go to the office, we might birth a baby in the morning, save a drowning surfer in the afternoon, and run into a fire at night. What could be more interesting than that?

  Caroline Paul

  Running, Baby, Morning

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• Who wants to do good in this world must deny oneself. A man does not live on this Earth to be happy or to be honest only - he has to do great things for humanity, achieve the generosity of the spirit and rise above the banality where most of the people are drowning and wasting their days.

  Irving Stone

  Men, People, Generosity

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• The war of Armageddon has already started... God is using his many weapons. He is sending hurricanes so fast that [the blue-eyed devils] can't name them. He is drowning them in floods and causing their cars to crash and their airplanes cannot stay up in the sky. Their boats are sinking because Allah controls all things and he is using all methods to begin to wipe the devils off the planet, [and] the enemy is dying of diseases that have never been so deadly.

  Malcolm X

  War, Airplane, Blue

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• And that was my homecoming. It was fine, I guess. Getting back feels like your first breath after nearly drowning. Even if it hurts, it's good.

  Phil Klay

  Hurt, Firsts, Homecoming

  Phil Klay (2014). “Redeployment”, p.12, Penguin

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• Language matters because whoever controls the words controls the conversation, because whoever controls the conversation controls its outcome, because whoever frames the debate has already won it, because telling the truth has become harder and harder to achieve in an America drowning in Orwellian Newspeak.

  Erica Jong

  America, Outcomes, Matter

  Erica Jong (2007). “Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life”, p.9, Penguin

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• I wanted to play around with the format, really tear it to pieces and shake it up. For example, if Mitch saves someone from drowning, and that person then goes out and releases a virus that kills a million people. Imagine the moral implications of that.

  David Hasselhoff

  Play, People, Tears

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• I maintain, despite the moment's evidence against the claim, that we are born and grow up with a fondness for each other, and we have genes for that. We can be talked out of it, for the genetic message is like a distant music, and some of us are hard-of-hearing. Societies are noisy affairs, drowning out the sound of ourselves and our connection.

  Lewis Thomas

  Growing Up, Hearing, Messages

  Lewis Thomas (1984). “Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony”, Bantam

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• My room is like an antique shop, full of junk, and weird stuff. There's a big sword in there. And a taxidermy bird, and a couple of birdcages. And a lot of newspaper cuttings. I used to have a weird thing about cutting out morbid headlines from newspapers, and collecting them. I was fascinated with drowning, which is kind of strange.

  Florence Welch

  Couple, Cutting, Bird

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• There were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest.

  Anais Nin

  Self, Two, Curiosity

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• Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Mother, Children, Opinion

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.222, Penguin

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• You can't have intentions without consequences. The question is, who pays for the consequences? Saving fish from drowning. Same thing. Who’s saved? Who’s not?

  Amy Tan

  Saving, Pay, Intention

  Amy Tan (2005). “Saving Fish from Drowning”, p.125, Penguin

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• They were watching, out there past men's knowing, where stars are drowning and whales ferry their vast souls through the black and seamless sea.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Stars, Past, Men

  Cormac McCarthy (2015). “Blood Meridian: Picador Classic”, p.228, Pan Macmillan

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• You don't care what people think. You don't see your beloved's faults, the slight stinginess, the bit of carelessness, the occasional streak of meanness. You don't mind that he is beneath you socially, educationally, financially, and morally--that's the worst, I think, deficient morals. (Saving Fish From Drowning)

  Amy Tan

  Thinking, People, Mind

  Amy Tan (2012). “Saving Fish From Drowning”, p.15, HarperCollins UK

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• If his mother was drowning and I was drowning and he had to choose one of us to save, He says he'd save me.

  Judith Viorst

  True Love, Mother, Save Me

  Judith Viorst (2008). “Grown-Up Marriage: What We Know, Wish We Had Known, and Still Need to Know About Being Married”, p.72, Simon and Schuster

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• always either on a peak of happiness or drowning in black waters of despair they loved or they loathed, they lived in a world of superlatives

  Nancy Mitford

  Water, Black, Despair

  Nancy Mitford (2010). “The Pursuit of Love”, p.13, Vintage

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• In this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of our social life, somebody is always at the drowning-point.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Country, Republican, Wave

  Nathaniel Hawthorne (2015). “The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Novels, Short Stories, Poems, Essays, Letters and Memoirs (Illustrated): The Scarlet Letter with its Adaptation, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, Tanglewood Tales, Birthmark, Ghost of Doctor Harris… (Including Biographies and Literary Criticism)”, p.375, e-artnow

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• Not Waving but Drowning Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning. Poor chap, he always loved larking And now he's dead It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way, They said. Oh, no no no, it was too cold always (Still the dead one lay moaning) I was much too far out all my life And not waving but drowning.

  Stevie Smith

  Heart, Men, Way

  "Not Waving but Drowning" l. 11 (1957)

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• I'm drowning in papers.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Paper, Papers

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