On The Water Quotes

1. "Where am I going? I don't quite know.Down to the stream where the king-cups grow-Up on a hill where the pine-trees blow-Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know.Where am I going? The clouds sail by,Little ones, baby ones, over the sky.Where am I going? The shadows pass,Little ones, baby ones, over the grass.If you were a cloud, and sailed up there,You'd sail on the water as blue as air.And you'd see me here in the fields and say:"Doesn't the sky look green today?"Where am I going? The high rooks call:"It's awful fun to be born at all.Where am I going? The ring-doves coo:"We do have beautiful things to do."If you were a bird, and lived on high,You'd lean on the wind when the windcame by,You'd say to the wind when it took you away:"That's where I wanted to go today!"Where am I going? I don't quite know.What does it matter where people go?Down to the wood where the blue-bells grow-Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know."
Author: A.A. Milne

2. "And, ah! his castle. The faery solitude of the place, with its turrets of mistly blue, its courtyard, its spiked gate, his castle that lay on the very bosom of the sea with seabirds mewing about its attics, the casements opening onto the green and purple, evanescent departures of the ocean, cut off by the tide from land for half a day . . . that castle, at home neither on the land nor on the water, a mysterious, amphibious place, contravening the materiality of both earth and waves, with the melancholy of a mermaiden who perches on her rocks and waits, endlessly, for a lover who had drowned far away, long ago. That lovely, sad, sea-siren of a place."
Author: Angela Carter

3. "Like any child, I slid into myself perfectly fitted, as a diver meets her reflection in a pool. Her fingertips enter the fingertips on the water, her wrists slide up her arms. The diver wraps herself in her reflection wholly, sealing it at the toes, and wears it as she climbs rising from the pool, and ever after."
Author: Annie Dillard

4. "The place is changed now, and many familiar faces are gone, but the greatest change is myself. I was a child then, I had no idea what the world would be like. I wished to trust myself on the waters and the sea. Everything was romantic in my imagination. The woods were peopled by the mysterious good folk. The Lords and Ladies of the last century walked with me along the overgrown paths, and picked the old fashioned flowers among the box and rose hedges of the garden."
Author: Beatrix Potter

5. "It's time to float on the waters of the night.Time to wrap my arms around this book and press it to my chest, life preserver in a seat of unremarkable men and womenanonymous faces on the street, a hundred thousand unalphabitized thingsa million forgotten hours."
Author: Billy Collins

6. "Talk about songs that make me cry: Track 7 on the 'Phineas and Ferb' soundtrack, 'Summer (Where Do We Begin?).' When you get to the part about sitting with your brother underneath the shade of a big tree in the backyard, ohmygod. Turn on the waterworks."
Author: Christopher Gorham

7. "A dozen or more boats on the lake swung their rosy and moon–like lanterns low on the water, that reflected as from a fire. In the distance, the steamer twanged and thrummed and washed with her faintly–splashing paddles, trailing her strings of coloured lights, and occasionally lighting up the whole scene luridly with an effusion of fireworks, Roman candles and sheafs of stars and other simple effects, illuminating the surface of the water, and showing the boats creeping round, low down. Then the lovely darkness fell again, the lanterns and the little threaded lights glimmered softly, there was a muffled knocking of oars and a waving of music.Gudrun paddled almost imperceptibly. Gerald could see, not far ahead, the rich blue and the rose globes of Ursula's lanterns swaying softly cheek to cheek as Birkin rowed, and iridescent, evanescent gleams chasing in the wake. He was aware, too, of his own delicately coloured lights casting their softness behind him."
Author: D.H. Lawrence

8. "I live on the water. I live in a neighborhood that's consummately connected to my neighbors. I bump into them every day. I can bike to work."
Author: Dan Buettner

9. "Lying in a featherbed will not bring you fame, nor staying beneath the quilt, and he who uses up his life without achieving fame leaves no more vestige of himself on earth than smoke in the air or foam upon the water."
Author: Dante Alighieri

10. "If fate is a shape-shifter, then loves is too. It can be, anyway, in its most dangerous form. It´s your best day and then your worst. It´s your most hope and then you most despair. Lightness, darkness, it can swing between extremes at lightning speed- a boat upon the water on the most dangerous day, and then the clouds crawl in and the sky turns black and the sea rages and the boat is lost."
Author: Deb Caletti

11. "And you're too nice," he added, above the lap-lap of the water and the patter of sand on the water-lily leaves. "I was relying on you being too jealous to let that demon near the place."
Author: Diana Wynne Jones

12. "Later he saw Jesus move from tree to tree in the back of his mind, a wild ragged figure motioning him to turn around and come off into the dark where he might be walking on the water and not know it and then suddenly know it and drown."
Author: Flannery O'Connor

13. "When we find that we have been aroused to anger we must call for God's help like the apostles when they were tossed about by the wind and storm on the waters. He will command your passions to cease and there will be a great calm."
Author: Francis De Sales

14. "Venice never quite seems real, but rather an ornate film set suspended on the water."
Author: Frida Giannini

15. "There's high, and there's high, and to get really high - I mean so high that you can walk on the water, that high-that's where I'm going."
Author: George Harrison

16. "That's a poet.''I thought you said it was a bo-at.''Stupid pet! Don't you know what a poet it?''Why, a thing to sail on the water in.''Well, perhaps you're not so far wrong. Some poets do carry people over the sea....'...'A poet is a man who is glad of something, and tries to make other people glad of it too."
Author: George MacDonald

17. "And when the sun goes down and the mood comes upon me, I'll watch the play of the colors on the water, yield to the fleetly dissolving images, and turn into pure feeling, all soft and nice...."
Author: Günter Grass

18. "A smile is hidden beneath the mustache, it crinkles the corners of his hooded eyes. "I didn't. I have other business in town and I told my friend I would attend to the matter of his son, as he could not do so himself." "Very kind of you." "Yes. I have been looking forward to it for quite some time." Daddy's lemonade is almost gone, he sips it carefully, turning his eyes back to the water. "Looking forward to seeing the lad or to conducting your business?" Daddy is toying with him. "Both. You see, I had never actually met his son." The glass rests against Daddy's lips, unmoving. Mr. Geyer watches him closely. "But now I have, so I can get on with my," he fixes his own gaze on the water, as though trying to see whatever it is that has transfixed my father, "business."
Author: Gwenn Wright

19. "His smiling face revealed a love too strong to be kept inside, but the feelings obviously rising inside him kept him from looking directly at Kikunojou. He gazed instead at Kikunojou's clear reflection on the water."
Author: Haruo Shirane

20. "Woe to him whom this world charms from Gospel duty. Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale. Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal. Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness. Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation. Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway."
Author: Herman Melville

21. "If we are to be happy, decent and secure of our souls: drink some kind of fermented liquor with one's food; go on the water from time to time; dance on occasions, and sing in a chorus..."
Author: Hilaire Belloc

22. "Sala called for more drink and Sweep brought four rums, saying they were on the house. We thanked him and sat for another half hour, saying nothing. Down on the waterfront I could hear the slow clang of a ship's bell as it eased against the pier, and somewhere in the city a motorcycle roared through the narrow streets, sending its echo up the hill to Calle O'Leary. Voices rose and fell in the house next door and the raucous sound of a jukebox came from a bar down the street. Sounds of a San Juan night, drifting across the city through layers of humid air; sounds of life and movement, people getting ready and people giving up, the sound of hope and the sound of hanging on, and behind them all, the quiet, deadly ticking of a thousand hungry clocks, the lonely sound of time passing in the long Caribbean night."
Author: Hunter S. Thompson

23. "The words are clear as in the reflection of the world on the water. Therefore write the Word at once, everywhere, from now till your hand is paralyzed, for THERE will be your work for GOD, since you can not work for God in other ways, and would not, & don't know how, or bend that way, from habit, & from talent in the use & signification & arrangement of the Word."
Author: Jack Kerouac

24. "With my foot on the water, I feel The moon outside,Take on the utmost of its power. I rise and go out through the boats.I set my broad soul upon silver, On the skin of the sky, on the moonlight,Stepping outward from the earth onto waterIn quest of the miracle."
Author: James Dickey

25. "They throw themselves on the waters of the world, and they know they will be borne up."
Author: Jane Smiley

26. "I picture it like Judgement Day,' he says finally, his eyes on the water. 'We'll rise up out of our bodies and find each other again in spirit form. We'll meet in that new place, all of us together, and first it'll seem strange, and pretty soon it'll seem strange that you could ever lose someone, or get lost."
Author: Jennifer Egan

27. "You look at me, you look at me closely, each time closer and then we play cyclops, we look at each other closer each time and our eyes grow, they grow closer, they overlap and the cyclops look at each other, breathing confusion, their mouths find each other and fight warmly, biting with their lips, resting their tongues lightly on their teeth, playing in their caverns where the heavy air comes and goes with the scent of an old perfume and silence. Then my hands want to hide in your hair, slowly stroke the depth of your hair while we kiss with mouths full of flowers or fish, of living movements, of dark fragrance. And if we bite each other, the pain is sweet, and if we drown in a short and terrible surge of breath, that instant death is beauty. And there is a single saliva and a single flavour of ripe fruit, and I can feel you shiver against me like a moon on the water."
Author: Julio Cortázar

28. "Turn to my left and see a young couple walking along the sidewalk.  Seattle's Alki Beach is pretty much deserted, aside from a few die-hards, or early morning insomniacs, like me.  The young couple are walking away from me, hand in hand, smiling at each other, and I point my lens at them and click.  I zoom in on their sneaker-clad feet and locked hands and shoot some more, my photographer's eye appreciating their intimate moment on the beach. I inhale the salty air and stare out at the sound once again as a red-sailed boat gently glides out on the water. The early morning sunshine is"
Author: Kristen Proby

29. "I believe in goodness, mercy and charity. I believe in casting bread upon the waters."
Author: Leonard Nimoy

30. "One last mystery: on one of the little ponds, this morning, I saw wind riffling the first of the waterlily leaves. They haven't all emerged yet, but new circles tattoo the water, here and there, a coppery red. When the wind lifted their edges, each would reveal a little shadowy spot, a dot of black which seemed to flash on the water, and so across the whole surface of the pond there was what could only be described as the inverse of sparkling; a scintillant blackness. Shining blackly, black but rippling, lyrical: the sheen and radiance of death-in-life.Is that my work, to point to the world and say, See how darkly it sparkles?"
Author: Mark Doty

31. "Maybe you're getting into the rhythm of sailing life," says James. He looks out at the waves that are rolling in to lap against the dock. "You know, the tides going in and then out, the wind blowing east and then west, the high of a perfect day out on the water, the low of a thunderstorm or a wind that won't go your way."
Author: Melissa C. Walker

32. "A long smear of crimson on the water's surface drifted by the watching warriors."
Author: Michael R. Hicks

33. "The sun's rays reflected beautifully upon the water, creating a magnificent glistening effect over the waves. The pier to the left was docking ships, while on the right, a ferry took off into the open waters. It was a beautiful sight to watch; how small everything looked in something as big as the ocean. It reminded me of people, how we were just a small part of what made up the world. Our numbers might be large, but we were not alone in this world. We were insignificant to nature."
Author: Nicole Sobon

34. "The sun was extinguishing itself on the watery horizon."
Author: P.W. Catanese

35. "She gave him a happy look as he followed her out on the water-soaked wooden walk. "This could be fun," she said, then turned, took a running step, and did a couple of back flips—like a middle-school kid at recess. He stopped where he was, lust and love and fear rising up in a surge of emotion he did not, for all his years, have any idea how to deal with. "What?" she asked, a little breathless from her gymnastics. She brushed her wavy hair out of her face and gave him a serious look. "Is there something wrong?" He could hardly tell her that he was afraid because he didn't know what he'd do if something happened to her. That his sudden, unexpected reaction had brought Brother Wolf to the fore. She threw his balance off; his control—which had become almost effortless over the years—was erratic at best."
Author: Patricia Briggs

36. "Say what you want about fairies, but you haven't rocked out until you've heard Smoke on the Water played on a harpsichord. ~Harlow"
Author: Red Tash

37. "The weak grey light that serves as harbinger of red and golden dawn faintly lit my window. I fumbled for a candle, found and lit it, and by its little light saw that the rose floating in the bowl was dying. It had already lost most of its petals, which floated on the water like tiny, un-seaworthy boats, deserted for safer craft."Dear God," I said. "I must go back at once."
Author: Robin McKinley

38. "Candlestick was built on the water. It should have been built under it."
Author: Roger Maris

39. "I had never seen the view at this time before, at the very pinnacle of night when sunset was far behind us and dawn had not yet risen rosy-fingered from the horizon. The night was ashen, tones of granite and iron and heather in the ripples of the waves, which were calmer than earlier in the day. It was as if even the ocean was drowsy – a pale, weighty moon hung full and pregnant in the sky, its reflection floating lambent on the water."
Author: Rosie Pugh

40. "With little going for me other than unstoppable eagerness, a sense of total commitment, and a stubborn refusal to give up on what felt like a divinely ordained scheme, I cast myself upon the waters of the world's oceans."
Author: Roz Savage

41. "If you had watched any of those three wonderful films, you would have caught Vampire Gym Teacher # 2: Back to Cruel, where the vampire hunter ties a vampire chick to the shower and tortures her by turning on the water. They can?t stand water, even if it?s not holy water."
Author: Rusty Fischer

42. "The sky was full of stars, and the stars reflected on the water like millions of tiny memories, distorted by the ripples and the waves."
Author: Shawn Mihalik

43. "Time was a face on the water, and like the great river before them, it did nothing but flow."
Author: Stephen King

44. "Sunk in the mud, it took all my strength to flip it over. I lifted out the oar and inspected the bottom for holes and rotted wood. Seeing none, I gathered up my skirt, climbed in, and paddled to the middle of the pond, an untouchable place, far from everything. I tried to think what I would say to him, worried my voice would slink off again and leave me. I remained there a long while, lapping on the surface. Vapor curled on the water, dragonflies pricked the air, and I thought it all beautiful."
Author: Sue Monk Kidd

45. "I locked the door and turned on the water to fill the tub. I made it so hot that I had to get in real slow. I wanted it to hurt; wanted my outside to feel as bad as my inside. I sat there a long time watching my skin turn redder and redder... Finally my insides was as fiery as my skin. I liked the burn and hoped it took everything I'd been wishing for and turned it to ashes."
Author: Susan Crandall

46. "Feathers... drift on the water like dreams."
Author: Susan Fletcher

47. "A ship's engine far away on the water expands the summer-night horizon. Both joy and sorrow swell in the dew's magnifying glass. Without really knowing, we divine; our life has a sister ship, following quietly another route. While the sun blazes behind the islands."
Author: Tomas Transtromer

48. "For here he was, barely able to tread water, some gargantuan lizard in the water with him, and the most beautiful woman in the world decapitated and bobbing on the water."
Author: Vernon D. Burns

49. "Gliding o'er all, through all,Through Nature, Time, and Space,As a ship on the waters advancing,The voyage of the soul—not life alone,Death, many deaths I'll sing."
Author: Walt Whitman

50. "The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,Burnt on the water."
Author: William Shakespeare

On The Water Quotes Pictures