Masts Quotes

• I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Travel, Journey, Wish

  Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.209, Courier Corporation

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• The horns came riding in like the rainbow masts of silver ships.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Rainbow, Horny, Riding

  Peter S. Beagle (2003). “A fine and private place: The last unicorn”

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• The ship was masted according to the proportion of the navy; but on my application the masts were shortened, as I thought them too much for her, considering the nature of the voyage.

  William Bligh

  Navy, Too Much, Voyages

  William Bligh (2009). “The Voyage of the Bounty”, p.2, BoD – Books on Demand

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• Oh yeah - I watched Knife in the Water, saw the shot, and repeated it. But even if I hadn't seen that film, inevitably the camera would've ended up on top of that mast, I mean if you think of it there are only so many dynamic shots on a boat.

  Phillip Noyce

  Mean, Thinking, Knives

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• And the wind plays on those great sonorous harps, the shrouds and masts of ships.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Wind, Play, Ships

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1851). “The prose works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow”, p.30

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• Haul up the flag, you mourners, Not half-mast but all the way; The funeral is done and disbanded; The devil's had the final say.

  Karl Shapiro

  Funeral, Devil, Finals

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• The vessel, though her masts be firm,Beneath her copper bears a worm.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Bears, Worms, Copper

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.148, Penguin

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• Effort ceases. Time flaps on the mast. There we stop; there we stand. Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame

  Virginia Woolf

  Skeletons, Effort, Habit

  Virginia Woolf (2012). “Mrs. Dalloway - Broadview Edition”, p.49, Broadview Press

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• He rested sitting on the un-stepped mast and sail and tried not to think but only to endure.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Thinking, Sitting, Sail

  Ernest Hemingway, Nick Lyons, Jack Hemingway (2012). “Hemingway on Fishing”, p.204, Simon and Schuster

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• Day by day. No yesterdays and no tomorrows. The barometer never changes, the flag is always at half-mast.

  Henry Miller

  Yesterday, Flags, Half

  Henry Miller (1977). “Tropic of Cancer”

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• The white face of the winter day came sluggishly on, veiled in a frosty mist; and the shadowy ships in the river slowly changed to black substances; and the sun, blood-red on the eastern marshes behind dark masts and yards, seemed filled with the ruins of a forest it had set on fire.

  Charles Dickens

  Nature, Winter, Dark

  Charles Dickens (2016). “Our Mutual Friend”, p.74, Xist Publishing

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• Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea Loves t'have his sails filled with a lusty wind, Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack, And his ship run on her side so low That she drinks water, and her keel plows air.

  George Chapman

  Life, Running, Wind

  George Chapman (1990). “The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles Duke of Byron”, p.35, Manchester University Press

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• O'er Ocean, with a thousand masts, sails forth the stripling bold-
  One boat, hard rescued from the deep, draws into port the old!

  Friedrich Schiller

  Life, Ocean, Boat

  Friedrich Schiller (1852). “Poems and Ballads ... translated by Sir E. B. Lytton ... With a brief sketch of Schiller's life”, p.248

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• If I can leave a single message with the younger generation, it is to lash yourself to the mast, like Ulysses if you must, to escape the siren calls of complacency and indifference.

  Edward Kennedy

  Generations, Sirens, Complacency

  Edward Moore Kennedy (1979). “Our Day and Generation: The Words of Edward M. Kennedy”

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• Courage~ What makes the flag on the mast to wave? What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage! What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder? Courage! What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the "ape" in apricot?~Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz

  L. Frank Baum

  Elephants, Dawn, Hot

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• Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast, Ready with every nod to tumble down Into the fatal bowels of the deep.

  William Shakespeare

  Life, Sailor, Bowels

  William Shakespeare (2013). “The Wars of the Roses In Plain and Simple English: Includes Henry VI Parts 1 - 3 & Richard III, Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V”, p.854, BookCaps Study Guides

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• By the way, I don't mean to pick nits here, but Obama has just ordered the flag at half-mast for 10 days for Mandela. He did not order the flag at half-mast at all for Lady Thatcher.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Mean, Order, Flags

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• Love will not be constrain'd by mastery. When mast'ry comes, the god of love anon Beateth his wings, and, farewell, he is gone. Love is a thing as any spirit free.

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  Farewell, Love Is, Gone Love

  Geoffrey Chaucer (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (Illustrated)”, p.1507, Delphi Classics

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• It's as if I'm Finnick, watching images of my life flash by. The mast of a boat, a silver parachute, Mags laughing, a pink sky, Beetee's trident, Annie in her wedding dress, waves breaking over rocks. Then its over.

  Suzanne Collins

  Rocks, Sky, Waves Breaking

  Suzanne Collins (2011). “The Hunger Games Trilogy”, p.1375, Scholastic Inc.

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• Hold still," my father would say, while I held the ship in the bottle and he burned away the strings he'd raised the mast with and set the clipper ship free on its blue putty sea. And I would wait for him, recognizing the tension of that moment when the world in the bottle depended, solely, on me.

  Alice Sebold

  Father, Blue, Sea

  Alice Sebold (2014). “The Lovely Bones: Picador Classic”, p.175, Pan Macmillan

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• Once, Turner had himself lashed to the mast of a ship for several hours, during a furious storm, so that he could later paint the storm. Obviously, it was not the storm itself that Turner intended to paint. What he intended to paint was a representation of the storm. One's language is frequently imprecise in that manner, I have discovered.

  David Markson

  Storm, Ships, Language

  David Markson (1995). “Wittgenstein's mistress”, Dalkey Archive Pr

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• No Fridolf, bother all this learning. I can't study anymore because I must climb the mast to see what kind of weather we're going to have tomorrow.

  Astrid Lindgren

  Weather, Tomorrow, Study

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• Get rid of their mast, knock holes in the hull, then get back on board." "You want us to sink her?" Gundar asked, and Halt shook his head. "No. I want her badly damaged but capable of making it back to port. I want the word to go out that the strange ship with the red falcon ensign"—he gestured to Evanlyn's ensign, flying from the mast top—"is manned by dangerous, hairy maniacs with axes and is to be avoided at all costs." "That sounds like us," Gundar said cheerfully.

  John Flanagan

  Axes, Flying, Cost

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• But he sleeps on the top of his mast with his eyes closed tight. The gull inquired into his dream, which was, "I must not fall. The spangled sea below wants me to fall. It is hard as diamonds; it wants to destroy us all.

  Elizabeth Bishop

  Dream, Fall, Sleep

  Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “Poems”, p.24, Macmillan

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• Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye.

  Khalil Gibran

  Eye, Anchors, House

  Khalil Gibran (2007). “Kahlil Gibran: Masterpieces”

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