Containerized Cargo Quotes

Early Trans-Atlantic Voyages
"Since Columbus' discovery of the islands in the Caribbean, the number of Spanish ships that ventured west across the Atlantic had consistently increased. For reasons of safety in numbers, the ships usually made the transit in convoys, carrying nobility, public servants and conquistadors on the larger galleons that had a crew of 180 to 200. On these ships a total of 40 to 50 passengers had their own cabins amidships. These ships carried paintings, finished furniture, fabric and, of course, gold on the return trip. The smaller vessels including the popular caravels had a crew of only 30, but carried as many people as they could fit in the cargo holds. Normally they would carry about 100 lesser public servants, soldiers, and settlers, along with farm animals and equipment, seeds, plant cuttings and diverse manufactured goods. ~ Hank Bracker

My credit card company calls me if it looks like I've bought too many hoodies and cargo pants for my kid at Old Navy. ~ Christy Lemire

Sicarius, are you ready for a hike?"
She faced him only to find he had armed himself - more so than usual. In addition to his daggers and throwing knives, he held two rifles, two pistols, two cargo belts laden with ammo pouches, and a bag of his smoke grenades.
"Or a single-handed all-out assault on the forest? ~ Lindsay Buroker

I still can't unsee Tommy's outfit: nighttime sunglasses, a dark blazer as loose and baggy as rain gear, sand-colored cargo pants with pockets filled to capacity (was he smuggling potatoes?), a white tank top, clunky Frankenstein combat boots, and two belts. Yes, two belts. ~ Greg Sestero

ISS leak is just like on a ship, there are bulkheads that, if there's an emergency, can separate an area that's no longer airtight from the undamaged portion of the station. The former Russian space station Mir actually did once develop a leak, after colliding with an unmanned cargo ship. Everyone survived. ~ Ulrich Walter

The weapons that helped turn what had been initially peaceful demonstrations in Syria into ruthless civil war were delivered to Turkey with the USA's kind permission, either by ship in gigantic cargo containers or by air. From ~ Jurgen Todenhofer

Why, given all the information possessed by the Admiralty about U-20; given the Admiralty's past willingness to provide escorts to inbound ships or divert them away from trouble; given that the ship carried a vital cargo of rifle ammunition and artillery shells; given that Room 40's intelligence prompted the obsessive tracking and protection of the HMS Orion; given that U-20 had sunk three vessels in the Lusitania's path; given Cunard chairman Booth's panicked Friday morning visit to the navy's Queenstown office; given that the new and safer North Channel route was available; and given that passengers and crew alike had expected to be convoyed to Liverpool by the Royal Navy - the question remains, ~ Erik Larson

A man's age represents a fine cargo of experiences and memories. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

Speaking to a foreigner was the dream of every student, and my opportunity came at last. When I got back from my trip down the Yangtze, I learned that my year was being sent in October to a port in the south called Zhanjiang to practice our English with foreign sailors. I was thrilled.

Zhanjiang was about 75 miles from Chengdu, a journey of two days and two nights by rail. It was the southernmost large port in China, and quite near the Vietnamese border.

It felt like a foreign country, with turn-of-the-century colonial-style buildings, pastiche Romanesque arches, rose windows, and large verandas with colorful parasols. The local people spoke Cantonese, which was almost a foreign language. The air smelled of the unfamiliar sea, exotic tropical vegetation, and an altogether bigger world.

But my excitement at being there was constantly doused by frustration. We were accompanied by a political supervisor and three lecturers, who decided that, although we were staying only a mile from the sea, we were not to be allowed anywhere near it. The harbor itself was closed to outsiders, for fear of 'sabotage' or defection. We were told that a student from Guangzhou had managed to stow away once in a cargo steamer, not realizing that the hold would be sealed for weeks, by which time he had perished. We had to restrict our movements to a clearly defined area of a few blocks around our residence.

Regulations like these were part of our daily li ~ Jung Chang

Aidan Kincaid, wearing cargo pants and a dark blue T-shirt with a Search-and-Rescue emblem on the pec, a radio on his hip, looking dusty and hot and tired and sexy as hell. ~ Jill Shalvis

November 18, 2014: it's a day that should live forever in history. On that day, in the city of Yiwu in China's Zhejiang province, 300 kilometers south of Shanghai, the first train carrying 82 containers of export goods weighing more than 1,000 tons left a massive warehouse complex heading for Madrid. It arrived on December 9th. Welcome to the new trans-Eurasia choo-choo train. At over 13,000 kilometers, it will regularly traverse the longest freight train route in the world, 40% farther than the legendary Trans-Siberian Railway. Its cargo will cross China from East to West, then Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, France, and finally Spain. ~ Anonymous

The wind swoops over the tenements on Orchard Street, where some of those starry-eyed dreams have died and yet other dreams are being born into squalor and poverty, an uphill climb. It gives a slap to the laundry stretched on lines between tenements, over dirty, broken streets where, even at this hour, hungry children scour the bins for food. The wind has existed forever. It has seen much in this country of dreams and soap ads, old horrors and bloodshed. It has played mute witness to its burning witches, and has walked along a Trail of Tears; it has seen the slave ships release their human cargo, blinking and afraid, into the ports, their only possession a grief they can never lose. ~ Libba Bray

we rescue our tears from the sea
secure them by writ ~ M. NourbeSe Philip

The ultimate aim of politics is not politics, but the activities which can be practised within the political framework of the State. Therefore an effective statement of these activities e.g. science , art , religion is in itself a declaration of ultimate aims around which the political means will crystallise ... a society with no values outside of politics is a machine carrying its human cargo, with no purpose in its institutions reflecting their care, eternal aspirations, loneliness, need for love . ~ Stephen Spender

A boatload of government money is indeed a gift. Unless, I suppose, you're one of the saps paying for the cargo. ~ David Harsanyi

She asked herself a thousand times why she had hungered so desperately to belong body and soul to Joaquin Andieta when truth she had never been totally happy in his arms, and could explain it only in terms of first love. She had been ready to fall in love when he came to the house to unload some cargo; the rest was instinct. She had merely obeyed the most powerful and ancient of calls, but it had happened an eternity ago and seven thousand miles away. Who she was then and what she had seen in him she could not say, only that now her heart was far away from there. Not only was she tired of looking for him but deep down she did not want to find him; at the same time, though, she could not go on riddled with doubt. She needed an ending for that phase in order to begin a new love with a clean slate ~ Isabel Allende

The mind of the most rational among us may be compared to a stormy ocean of passionate convictions based on desire, upon which float perilously a few tiny boats carrying a cargo of scientifically tested beliefs. ~ Bertrand Russell

I carry your love like a backpack. I only wish your love had a larger cargo capacity, and had zippers instead of Velcro. ~ Jarod Kintz

Fear is the major cargo that American writers must stow away when the writing life calls them into its carefully chosen ranks. ~ Pat Conroy

Last year, customs officials screened only five percent of the 11 million cargo containers entering the United States. That rate is both unacceptable and dangerous to our national and economic interests. ~ Allyson Schwartz

Billings pulled a roll from a compartment in his cargo pants leg. We gawked at him in disbelief. He shrugged. What? You never know when you're going to need duct tape. ~ Shelly Crane

Into the cargo room. Down the ramp of the hatch door, into the brightness of day. They'd barely stepped off of it when squeals pierced the air and the slab of metal began to close. Alec lifted the Berg off the ground, blue thrusters roaring. Mark was barely holding onto his mind, but he felt a sudden, unbearable sadness. He'd never see the old bear again. ~ James Dashner

The white dress, made of billowy fabric like a cargo parachute, made her look like the female Boss Hogg trying out for a part in a community theater presentation of Brigadoon. ~ Jon Konrath

We recognize that it is not only inbound but also outbound (cargo) that can pose a risk as well. ~ Asa Hutchinson

I really do believe that all of you are at the beginning of a wonderful journey. As you start traveling down that road of life, remember this: There are never enough comfort stops. The places you're going to are never on the map. And once you get that map out, you won't be able to re-fold it no matter how smart you are.
So forget the map, roll down the windows, and whenever you can pull over and have picnic with a pig. And if you can help it never fly as cargo. ~ Jim Henson

The denim lovingly cupped his manhood as if it were precious cargo.
Effie elbowed her. "Oh, the man saunters like walking sin, doesn't he? ~ Vonnie Davis

You were a town with one pay phone and someone else was using it.
You were an ATM temporarily unable to dispense cash.
You were an outdated link and the server was down.
You were invisible to the naked eye.
You were the two insect parts per million allowed in peanut butter.
You were a car wash that me as dirty as when I pulled in.
You were twenty rotting bags of rice in the hold of a cargo plane sitting on the runway in a drought-riddled country.
You were one job opening for two hundred applicants and you paid minimum wage.
You were grateful for my submission but you just couldn't use it.
You weren't a Preferred Provider.
You weren't giving any refunds.
You weren't available for comment.
Your grave wasn't marked so I wandered the cementary for hours, part of the grass, part of the crumbling stones. ~ Kim Addonizio

Iain MacGregor," she whispered longingly, looking up. The woods were quiet. Strips of moonlight shone through tree limbs that reached like surreal black fingertips across her vision. A single tear slid down her cheek. She touched her mouth, imagining his kiss.
Taking a small pocket knife out of her cargo pants, she looked about. A mystic had once told her that if she left pieces of herself around while she lived, it would expand her haunting territory when she died. Jane wasn't sure she believed in sideshow magic tricks - or the Old Magick as the mystic had spelled it on her sign. She had no idea what had possessed her to talk to the palm reader and ask about ghosts. Still, just in case, she was leaving her stamp all over the woods.
She cut her palm and pressed it to a nearby tree under a branch. Holding the wound to the rough bark stung at first, but then it made her feel better. This forest wouldn't be a bad eternity.
The sound of running feet erupted behind her and she stiffened. No one ever came out here at night. She'd walked the woods hundreds of times. Her mind instantly went to the creepy girl ghosts chanting by the stream.
"Whoohoo!"
Jane whipped around, startled as a streak of naked flesh sprinted past her. The Scottish voice was met with loud cheers from those who followed him. "Water's this way, lads, or my name isn't Raibeart MacGregor, King of the Highlands!"
Another naked man dashed through the forest after him. "It smells of freed ~ Michelle M. Pillow

You can't tell what's aboard a container ship. We carried every kind of cargo, all of it on view: a police car, penicillin, Johnnie Walker Red, toilets, handguns, lumber, Ping-Pong balls, and IBM data cards. ~ Christopher Buckley

It is satisfying, and after a while he finds himself singing an old song: the same one he sang with Oldenburg in Broad Arrow Tower. He keeps time with his hammer, and draws out those notes that make the cargo-hold resonate. All round him, water seeps through the cracks between Minerva's hull-planks (for he is well below the water-line) and trickles down merrily into the bilge, and the four-man pumps take it away with a steady suck-and-hiss that's like the systole and diastole of a beating heart. ~ Neal Stephenson

The fact that students passed him by in uniform and he was standing there in torn jeans and faded old concert T-shirt made me smile. The rebel in me could totally relate.
I stopped in front of him. "They're not going to let you stay in school dressed like that. I got a huge lecture for wearing a black shirt the other day."

He glanced my outfit, which didn't really diverge from my normal fashion, and arched an eyebrow. Black cargo pants, white tank, grey zip-up hoodie, with a blade strapped to my thigh and a dagger in my boot.

"What? Pants are black. Shirt is white. Blade stays." I grinned wider. "Because I'm special. ~ Kelly Keaton

Well,
she's long about her coming, who must be
more merciless to herself than history.
Her mind full to the wind, I see her plunge
breasted and glancing through the currents,
taking the light upon her
at least as beautiful as any boy
or helicopter,
poised, still coming,
her fine blades making the air wince

but her cargo
no promise then:
delivered
palpable
ours. ~ Adrienne Rich