Sailors Quotes

“I had a romance novel inside me, but I paid three sailors to beat it out of me with steel pipes.”
― Patton Oswalt

“And now you're off to Port Caynn. Watch them sailor lads. They'll have your skirts up and a babe in your belly afore you know what you're about."
"Everyone keep warning me about sailors," I complained. "Why can't someone tell the sailors to stay clear of me?"
Granny snorted. "Oh, you're the fierce one now! Just take care no one else catches you unawares and knocks you on the nob!”
― Tamora Pierce, Bloodhound

“There are good sailors. Well, some good sailors. In a way they are ideal as husbands. They drop in every six months for a wild celebration, then they drop out again before one gets bored with their company or annoyed with by their habits.”
― Kerry Greenwood, Queen of the Flowers

“There are no whores in Scaithe’s Ebb, or none that consider themselves as such, although there have always been many women who, if pressed, would describe themselves as much-married, with one husband on this ship here every six months, and another husband on that ship, back in port for a month or so every nine months. The mathematics of the thing have always kept most folk satisfied; and if ever it disappoints and a man returns to his wife while one of her other husbands is still in occupancy, why, then there is a fight — and the grog shops to comfort the loser.
The sailors do not mind the arrangement, for they know that this way there will, at the least, be one person who, at the last, will notice when they do not come back from the sea, and will mourn their loss; and their wives content themselves with the certain knowledge that their husbands are also unfaithful, for there is no competing with the sea in a man’s affections, since she is both mother and mistress, and she will wash his corpse also, in time to come, wash it to coral and ivory and pearls.”
― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“And although in many cases these unions proved happy enough, sailors being excellent husbands, often away and handy about the house when ashore, it did make for a curious gathering when the spouses were invited to a ball.”
― Patrick O'Brian, The Surgeon's Mate

“...when a storm was coming on, and they anticipated that a ship might sink, they swam before it, and sang most sweetly of the delight to be found beneath the water, begging the seafarers not to be afraid of coming down below.”
― Hans Christian Anderson

“You could start now, and spend another forty years learning about the sea without running out of new things to know.”
― Peter Benchley, The Deep

“The true substance of love lies in the act of howling words of love with a desperation of a man jumping into the high seas.”
― Osamu Dazai, Yeni Bir Hamlet

“When I finally did confront Mr. Arcott, after my return to Falchester, he had the cheek to try and argue that his intellectual thievery had been a compliment and a favor. After all, it meant my work was good enough to be accepted into ibn Khattusi's series -- but of course they never would have taken a submission from a woman, so he submitted it on my behalf. What I said in reply is not fit to be printed here, as by then I had spent a good deal of time in the company of sailors, and had at my disposal a vocabulary not commonly available to ladies of quality.”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“A wind that howled like a drowning man.”
― Kevin Ansbro, Kinnara

“The strongest storms make the best sailors. The strongest games make the best players. Tougher challenges make the best leaders.”
― Israelmore Ayivor, Leaders' Frontpage: Leadership Insights from 21 Martin Luther King Jr. Thoughts

“To-day a rude brief recitative,
Of ships sailing the seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal,
Of unnamed heroes in the ships—of waves spreading and spreading
far as the eye can reach,
Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing,
And out of these a chant for the sailors of all nations,
Fitful, like a surge.

Of sea-captains young or old, and the mates, and of all intrepid sailors,
Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise nor
death dismay.
Pick'd sparingly without noise by thee old ocean, chosen by thee,
Thou sea that pickest and cullest the race in time, and unitest nations,
Suckled by thee, old husky nurse, embodying thee,
Indomitable, untamed as thee.

(Ever the heroes on water or on land, by ones or twos appearing,
Ever the stock preserv'd and never lost, though rare, enough for
seed preserv'd.)

Flaunt out O sea your separate flags of nations!
Flaunt out visible as ever the various ship-signals!
But do you reserve especially for yourself and for the soul of man
one flag above all the rest,
A spiritual woven signal for all nations, emblem of man elate above death,
Token of all brave captains and all intrepid sailors and mates,
And all that went down doing their duty,
Reminiscent of them, twined from all intrepid captains young or old,
A pennant universal, subtly waving all time, o'er all brave sailors,
All seas, all ships.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“The ocean touched the horizon uninterrupted, the air so pure that nothing obscured the edge of the world. I understood then the madness of sailors as they abandoned all sight of land for the first time, of those who thought the world flat or the sea full of gods more ancient than time.”
― Thomm Quackenbush, Holidays with Bigfoot

“Sailors had a way of snatching words up like coins. Pocketing them for later.”
― V.E. Schwab, A Conjuring of Light

“As I am sure you know, we seafaring men are a superstitious lot.”
― Wilbur Smith, The Golden Lion

“But quand même. The best things in life are free. A round of billiards with sailors is more beautiful than Charleston in springtime, if they’re the right sailors.”
― Nell Zink, Mislaid

“Yeux mi-clos, il humait à présent dans les souffles du large l’âcreté du sel, il écoutait les vents siffler à son oreille, messagers rafraîchissants annonciateurs d’orage. Célian sentait à travers le tissu du hamac la peau réchauffée de Nyssa toujours endormie, sa longue chevelure princière apanagée de la lumière du jour.
L’agile équipage de l’Astéropée, muscles tendus, œuvrait d’un bel ensemble autour des écoutes, habitué à manœuvrer les cordages et les voiles sur les mâts protégés de plusieurs couches d’huile de lin ; mais à cet instant les marins qui prenaient leur quart étaient allongés sur le pont pour admirer le lever de soleil.”
― Cyrille Mendes, Les Épieurs d'Ombre

“There are no whores in Scaithe’s Ebb, or none that consider themselves as such, although there have always been many women who, if pressed, would describe themselves as much-married, with one husband on this ship here every six months, and another husband on that ship, back in port for a month or so every nine months.
The mathematics of the thing have always kept most folk satisfied; and if ever it disappoints and a man returns to his wife while one of her other husbands is still in occupancy, why, then there is a fight—and the grog shops to comfort the loser. The sailors do not mind the arrangement, for they know that this way there will, at the least, be one person who, at the last, will notice when they do not come back from the sea, and will mourn their loss; and their wives content themselves with the certain knowledge that their husbands are also unfaithful, for there is no competing with the sea in a man’s affections, since she is both mother and mistress, and she will wash his corpse also, in time to come, wash it to coral and ivory and pearls.”
― Niel Gaiman

“O Sailor!

It’s the way I want to be
It’s beyond the pale for me
It’s what being unknown is all about

It’s the path I choose to take
It’s the destiny I make
It’s my life now – the only way out

Out of circulation in another dimension
I carry you right inside my heart
As we’re one, moulded together
Always and forever, never apart

It’s a world where I’m alone
It’s a place where I can atone
It’s a severing of all ties I know

I feel so free and yet I’m bound
I’m invisible and yet around
I know I’ve got to go with the flow

My life now is like a sailboat ride,
Destiny is the wind – with you by my side,
I’m the sailor, who sets the course,
Empowered by an incredible force.”
― Tapan Ghosh, Faceless The Only Way Out

“Quando se encontrava, convidado de honra, na popa de um saveiro, ante uma peixada sensacional, as panelas de barro lançando olorosa fumaça, a garrafa de cachaça passando de mão em mão, havia sempre um instante, quando os violões começavam a ser ponteados, em que seus instintos marítimos despertavam. Punha-se de pé, o corpo gingando, dava-lhe a cachaça aquele vacilante equilíbrio dos homens do mar, declarava sua condição de velho marinheiro. Velho marinheiro sem barco e sem mar, desmoralizado em terra, mas não por culpa sua. Porque para o mar nascera, para içar velas e dominar o leme de saveiros, para domar as ondas em noite de temporal.”
― Jorge Amado, The Two Deaths of Quincas Wateryell

“Fawn supposed Black's treaty had been made long ago. He was tall and unwavering, like one of the shaded lighthouses scattered across Cadoett's waters. How many ships were still lost? How many sailors never made it home? Black was resolute, and the mountain appeared to empower him.”
― Ella Rose Carlos, A Long Lost Fantasy

“A great cheer rose from the islands, drifting up to the puzzled sailors aboard the North Carolina. Why are they cheering for us? We haven’t done anything. But it was the promised of what they could do, would do, that brought the cheers. They felt humbled, proud, scared, determined.”
― Cindy Horrell Ramsey, Boys of the Battleship North Carolina

“Hard storms make great sailors”
― Chaker Khazaal, Confessions of a War Child

“The earth grows white with harvest; all day long
The sickles gleam, until the darkness weaves
Her web of silence o'er the thankful song
Of reapers bringing home the golden sheaves.
The wave tops whiten on the sea fields drear,
And men go forth at haggard dawn to reap;
But ever 'mid the gleaners' song we hear
The half-hushed sobbing of the hearts that weep.”
― John McCrae

“The skin on his palm was thicker than the hide on a man's heel, but across it and between the fingers were deep raw cracks from the cold and the salt which would never heal, not until he settled ashore. And that was not likely to be anytime soon, for when a man's got salt water in his blood and a sea wind in his lungs, neither wife nor land can keep him from the waves.”
― Karen Maitland, The Gallows Curse

“Vitamin C prevented scurvy in sailors.”
― Steven Magee, Pandemic Supplements

“A sleeping sailor makes no gains but a heavy weight upon the ship.”
― Aegelis, X Captain Ruik's Adventure

“Sailors never asked for money but, on the contrary, had large sums of money to spend in short spasms of shore leave. They also never turned nasty. Perhaps the act of running away to sea was an abandonment of accepted convention and, after a sojourn in strange ports, they returned with their outlook and possibly their anus broadened.”
― Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant

“Take a bowsy short leave of your nymphs on the shore, And silence their mourning with vows
of returning,
Though never intending to visit them
more.”
― Nahum Tate, The Loves of Dido and Aeneas, an Opera, Written by Nahum Tate, Esq. and Set to Music by Mr. Henry Purcell, Performed, ... by the Academy of Ancient Music, on Thursday, April 21, 1774.

“LET'S CRUSH THESE PATHETIC SAILORS THAT SLIME THE SEAS!”
― Ellie Dow