Asuncion Island Quotes

The island is ours. Here, in some way, we are young forever. ~ E. Lockhart

Look, this isn't magic realism. This is not another story about superstitious island people and their primitive beliefs. No. You don't get off that easy. This is a story about people as real as you are, and as real as I once was before I became a bodiless thing floating up here in the sky. You might as well consider a more urgent question; not whether you believe this story or not, but whether this story is about the kinds of people you have never taken the time to believe in. ~ Kei Miller

But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last. ~ Jack Gilbert

She told herself that she longed greatly to go back to those dear merry days when life was seen through a rosy mist of hope and illusion, and possessed an indefinable something that had passed away forever. Where was it now
the glory and the dream? ~ L.M. Montgomery

It is in fact necessary to reduce CO2 emissions. There is no reason why we shouldn't spend our vacations on (the North Sea island of) Sylt instead of in the Seychelles, or drive more economical cars - for the sake of preserving increasingly scarce resources if nothing else. But that won't enable us to stop climate change. As long as China, India and the United States continue the way they have been, what we Germans do is more or less irrelevant. ~ Hans Von Storch

I learned that, to survive, it was best to live in the present. On this island, there was no past or future. Your destiny was today. ~ Armando Lucas Correa

'Lost' is about a bunch of people stranded on an island. It's compelling, but kind of tiny. But what sustains you are the characters. ~ Carlton Cuse

Three big islands, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Honshu? And thousands of little ones. There's another island far to the north - some say it's the mainland - called Hokkaido, but only hairy natives ~ James Clavell

One day the "Good Morning Everyone" team announces that the government of the Dominican Republic has offered to bring all thirty-three miners and their families to a relaxing resort in that Caribbean island nation. ~ Hector Tobar

I've backpacked to countries like Italy and Turkey and observed beautiful scenery, but then I realized that beauty was always very close to me. It is here in Belitung Island, where the rivers, beaches and the terrain captivate my attention most. ~ Andrea Hirata

The Eightfold Path is ordering the island of the tonal completely. ~ Frederick Lenz

Here ends the story of a ship, but there will always be other ships, for we are an island race. Through all our centuries, the sea has ruled our destiny. There will always be other ships and men to sail in them. It is these men, in peace or war, to whom we owe so much. Above all victories, beyond all loss, in spite of changing values in a changing world, they give to us, their countrymen, eternal and indomitable pride. ~ Noel Coward

Immigration and travel certainly don't mean the same thing everywhere. Here in Cuba, the big wall isn't just the fact that it's an island, but the fact that we need an exit permit in order to leave, and the letters of invitation in order to visit another country. ~ Fernando Perez

N matter how stressed Claire became, the tropical trees and exotic island flowers decorating the lobby always managed to take her breath away and put her mind at ease. Nature had always been a good de-stressor for her coming in close behind having her hand held by Mr. Sam Stewart ~ Carolyn Gibbs

I had to create a children's show, because we wanted the money - and it was, interestingly enough, the first project at the Angel Island theatre space. We did the show, an adaptation of Grimm's Fairy Tales. It was hardcore Grimm - nothing was sanitized - and it was called 'The Mary-Arrchie Kid's Show.' It was well-received, and so I applied to do it through Urban Gateways in Chicago. ~ Richard Cotovsky

My chauffer once told me that I would feel better in the morning, but when I woke up the two of us were still on a tiny island surrounded by man-eating crocodiles, and, as I'm sure you can understand, I didn't feel any better about it. ~ Lemony Snicket

After we became a couple, she composed our time together. She planned days as if they were artistic events. One afternoon we went to Tybee Island for a picnic; we ate blueberries and drank champagne tinted with curacao and listened to Miles Davis, and when I asked the name of her perfume, she said it was L'Heure Bleue.
She talked about 'perfect moments.' One such moment happened that afternoon; she'd been napping; I lay next to her, reading. She said, 'I'll always remember the sounds of the sea and of pages turning, and the smell of L'Heure Bleue. For me they signify love. ~ Susan Hubbard

The battle of Iwo Jima would quickly turn into a primitive contest of gladiators: Japanese gladiators fighting from caves and tunnels like the catacombs of the Colosseum, and American gladiators aboveground, exposed on all sides, using liquid gasoline to burn their opponents out of their lethal hiding places.
All of this on an island five and a half miles long and two miles wide. An area smaller than Doc Bradley's hometown of Antigo, but bearing ten times the humanity. A car driving sixty miles an hour could cover its length in five and a half minutes. For the slogging, dying Marines, it would take more than a month. ~ James D. Bradley

I was used to unhappiness, formless and opaque, stretching out to every horizon. But this had shores, depths, a purpose and a shape. There was hope in it, for it would end, and bring me my child. My son. For whether by witchcraft or prophetic blood, that is what I knew he was. He grew, and his fragility grew with him. I had never been so glad of my immortal flesh, layered like armor around him. I was giddy feeling his first kicks and I spoke to him every moment, as I crushed my herbs, as I cut clothes for his body, wove his cradle out of rushes. I imagined him walking beside me, the child and boy and man that he would be. I would show him all the wonders I had gathered for him, this island and its sky, the fruits and sheep, the waves and lions. The perfect solitude that would never be loneliness again. I touched my hand to my belly. Your father said once that he wanted more children, but that is not why you live. You are for me. ~ Madeline Miller

Nights and days came and passed
and summer and winter
and the sun and the wind
and the rain.
and it was good to be a little island
a part of the world
and a world of its own
all surrounded by the bright blue sea. ~ Margaret Wise Brown

JOE HELLER

True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.

I said, "Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel 'Catch-22'
has earned in its entire history?"
And Joe said, "I've got something he can never have."
And I said, "What on earth could that be, Joe?"
And Joe said, "The knowledge that I've got enough."
Not bad! Rest in peace! ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Statuettes of drunken sailors, velvet pictures of island maidens, plastic seashell lamps made in Taiwan. What contempt the people who think up souvenirs have for other people. ~ Diane Johnson

... after all, what is a planet but an island in space? ~ John Wyndham

The eeriness of this lonely island, set among a million willows, swept by a hurricane, and surrounded by hurrying deep waters, touched us both, I fancy. Untrodden by man, almost unknown to man, it lay there beneath the moon, remote from human influence, on the frontier of another world, an alien world, a world tenanted by willows only and the souls of willows. And we, in our rashness, had dared to invade it, even to make use of it! ~ Algernon Blackwood

A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate millions ... Of all targets New York has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm. ~ E.B. White

Not a lot of attention has been paid to the Asian tiger mosquito, which is another species which we believe can also transmit Zika virus. It has a much broader range. It's found all the way north into coastal areas of Connecticut, Long Island and the New York metro area. ~ Laura Harrington

Every summer, my grandparents would rent a house on Balboa Island. They had the house next to Bob Hope's. I've been going down there all my life, to that whole area. ~ Mike Love

Each time I wander into blogdom, I'm reminded of the savage children stranded on an island in William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies.' Without adult supervision, they organize themselves into rival tribes, learn to hunt and kill, and eventually become murderous barbarians in the absence of a civilizing structure. ~ Kathleen Parker

Perchance the time will come when we shall not be content to go back and forth upon a raft to some huge Homeric or Shakespearean Indiaman that lies upon the reef, but build a bark out of that wreck and others that are buried in the sands of this desolate island, and such new timber as may be required, in which to sail away to whole new worlds of light and life, where our friends are. ~ Henry David Thoreau

But in fact I was like Ossie, in this one regard: I was consumed by a helpless, often furious love for a ghost. Every rock on the island, every swaying tree branch or dirty dish in our house was like a word in a a sentence that I could read about my mother. All objects and events on our island, every single thing that you could see with your eyes, were like clues that I could use to reinvent her: would our mom love this thing, would she hate it? For a second I luxuriated in a real hatred of my brother. ~ Karen Russell

It was completely insane, made absolutely no sense, but then, when did emotions ever give a flying crap about logic? ~ John Dixon

The pope heard of the Knights' lax morals and sent an inquisitor to the island in 1574; he set up shop in a mansion in the shopping district. ~ Tom Reiss

The Doctor: Amazing.
Nancy: What is?
The Doctor: 1941. Right now, not very far from here, the German war machine is rolling up the map of Europe. Country after country, falling like dominoes. Nothing can stop it, nothing. Until one tiny, damp little island says "No. No, not here." A mouse in front of a lion. You're amazing, the lot of you. I don't know what you do to Hitler, but you frighten the hell out of me. ~ Steven Moffat

The whole island is spotted with derelict cottages and abandoned churches like this one. They sit in pastures as invisible to the Irish as a mother is to a teenage girl. ~ Skyler White

Island

Wave of sorrow,
Do not drown me now:

I see the island
Still ahead somehow.

I see the island
And its sands are fair:

Wave of sorrow,
Take me there. ~ Langston Hughes

Come on, Princess," he called to the bench, and Carlotta bounced up. She was wide like the rest of them, but no man could fairly say she was too wide. The most that could be said was that she did not have much further to go before she would have to start squeezing it in and strapping it up, which she clearly did not do now. She let it hang where it was, and it did very nicely by itself. As she passed among the boys they looked her over with unconcealed envy, as though they knew she had something they didn't have but were not quite sure what it was. One thing was certain, she got more exercise than they did.

The next to be noticed were her braids, they hung forward over her terrain, ignoring as much as possible her contours, like two shiny black meridianal lines demarking her longitudes as far down as the equator. It was not hard to imagine oneself spending a long lifetime on that bare little island alone, with no plan or ambition, too overcome with the heat to continue on south to the pole, far less return to the continents. Nothing productive could ever be accomplished there, but there would be comfort such as few men have known, there would be torpor. The body swelled with such thoughts, the mind shrank from them, and the longing eyes traveled finally up north, to where those meridians came together at a point above a bland white area vaguely charted, with few landmarks, no doubt sparsely inhabited. There the imagination halted. ~ Douglas Woolf

As the mother of the ten-month-old hospitalized in San Diego said, if people want to make that choice, they should go live on an island with its own schools and doctors: "their own little infectious disease island. ~ Deborah Blum

Democracy means that if this man,you Miss and I will be trapped on an island, we having a majority of votes will decide that you have to sleep with us. That's the Democracy. And with 2/3 votes we can even put that in the constitution. ~ Janusz Korwin-Mikke

One of the few freedoms that we have as human beings that cannot be taken away from us is the freedom to assent to what is true and to deny what is false. Nothing you can give me is worth surrendering that freedom for. At this moment I'm a man with complete tranquillity...I've been a real estate developer for most of my life, and I can tell you that a developer lives with the opposite of tranquillity, which is perturbation. You're perturbed about something all the time. You build your first development, and right away you want to build a bigger one, and you want a bigger house to live in, and if it ain't in Buckhead, you might as well cut your wrists. Soon's you got that, you want a plantation, tens of thousands of acres devoted solely to shooting quail, because you know of four or five developers who've already got that. And soon's you get that, you want a place on Sea Island and a Hatteras cruiser and a spread northwest of Buckhead, near the Chattahoochee, where you can ride a horse during the week, when you're not down at the plantation, plus a ranch in Wyoming, Colorado, or Montana, because truly successful men in Atlanta and New York all got their ranches, and of course now you need a private plane, a big one, too, a jet, a Gulfstream Five, because who's got the patience and the time and the humility to fly commercially, even to the plantation, much less out to a ranch? What is it you're looking for in this endless quest? Tranquillity. You think if only you can acquire e ~ Tom Wolfe

I never know what you're thinking. Sometimes you're so closed off ... like an island slate. You intimidate me. That's why I keep quiet. I don't know which way your mood is going to go. It swings from north to south and back again in a nanosecond. ~ E.L. James

Can what's buried beneath the ground on Oak Island possibly be worth what the search for it has already cost? Six lives, scores of personal fortunes, piles of wrecked equipment, and tens of thousands of man-hours have been spent so far, and that's not to mention the blown minds and broken spirits that lie in the wake of what is at once the world's most famous and frustrating treasure hunt. ~ Randall Sullivan

You and me on a deserted tropical island where you'd be perpetually naked and I could slide into you at any moment.
I set one hand on my hip and shot him a look. Sunburned and bowlegged. Sexy. ~ Sylvia Day

But the universe, as a collection of finite things, presents itself as a kind of island situated in a pure vacuity to which time, regarded as a series of mutually exclusive moments, is nothing and does nothing. ~ Muhammad Iqbal

This is sacred space.
Libation . . . instead of pouring water on the ground, I pour words on the page.
I begin with this libation in honor of all of those unknown and known spirits who surround us. I acknowledge the origins of this land where I am seated while writing this introduction. This land was inhabited by Indigenous people, the very first people to inhabit this land, who lived here for thousands of years before the Europeans arrived and were unfortunately unable to cohabitate without dominating, enslaving, raping, terrorizing, stealing from, relocating, and murder- ing the millions of members of Indigenous nations throughout Turtle Island, which is now known as North America. I write libation to those millions of Indigenous women, men, and children; and those millions of kidnapped and enslaved African women, men, and children whose genocide, confiscated land, centuries of free labor, forced migration, traumatic memories of rape, and sweat, tears, and blood make up the very fiber and foundation of all of the Americas and the Caribbean. ~ Aishah Shahidah Simmons

Australia is an island surrounded by water. My fondest memories growing up were trips to the beach, walking around the harbor and playing in the beautiful parks. ~ Tammin Sursok

For me when I was growing up, some of the happiest times were when we went to a small island called Nantucket off Massachusetts. ~ Gwyneth Paltrow