Sailing Quotes

The moon was beginning to rise when they set out, and a good thing, too, Brianna thought. Even with the big, lopsided gold orb sailing up out of a cradle of stars and shedding its borrowed radiance over the sky, the trail beneath their feet was invisible. So were their feet, drowned in the absolute black of the forest at night. ~ Diana Gabaldon

There are valleys that lead to the bottom of the world, so it seems, but what world is that? The universe has no sides, no end, can't be mapped. Enough to make a man talk about God, make a man superstitious and worship an idol. The science never gets as far as the strangeness. The more sophisticated my equipment, the stranger the worlds it detects. I sometimes think I'm sailing through a vast thought. ~ Jeanette Winterson

Writing a book and not publishing it, is like building a boat and never sailing it - UNTHINKABLE! ~ Tony Jones

WE two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving,
Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,
Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,
Arm'd and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving.
No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving,
threatening,
Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on
the turf or the sea-beach dancing,
Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness
chasing,
Fulfilling our foray. ~ Walt Whitman

Life without the determination to do something meaningful each day is like a ship sailing in the vast oceans without a glimpse of the shore. ~ Prem Jagyasi

The difference between a fairy tale and a sea tale? A fairy tale starts with "Once upon a time". A sea tale starts with " This ain't no $hit"! ~ Edith Widder

So easy to go sailing off this road. A wonder more folks didn't. All that space, waiting. ~ S.M. Hulse

One thing which even the most seasoned and discerning masters of the art of choice do not and cannot choose, is the society to be born into - and so we are all in travel, whether we like it or not. We have not been asked about our feelings anyway. Thrown into a vast open sea with no navigation charts and all the marker buoys sunk and barely visible, we have only two choices left: we may rejoice in the breath-taking vistas of new discoveries - or we may tremble out of fear of drowning. One option not really realistic is to claim sanctuary in a safe harbour; one could bet that what seems to be a tranquil haven today will be soon modernized, and a theme park, amusement promenade or crowded marina will replace the sedate boat sheds. The third option not thus being available, which of the two other options will be chosen or become the lot of the sailor depends in no small measure on the ship's quality and the navigation skills of the sailors. Not all ships are seaworthy, however. And so the larger the expanse of free sailing, the more the sailor's fate tends to be polarized and the deeper the chasm between the poles. A pleasurable adventure for the well-equipped yacht may prove a dangerous trap for a tattered dinghy. In the last account, the difference between the two is that between life and death. ~ Zygmunt Bauman

Life is never going to be smooth sailing, but I've learned to roll with the punches. ~ Marie Hall

I enjoy the competition and the process of learning as we compete. The whole thing is just fascinating. I don't know what I'll do when I retire. When I go sailing, I look around ... anyone want to race? I just love competing as opposed to just going out and watching the sunset. ~ Larry Ellison

Through the Mud
(from the book Blue Bridge)

A line of robots,
We approach a wall of mud,
Some of us carrying flowers.
The others laugh
Bit when we enter that wall
It is the flowers
That will make us an ark
To carry us on through the darkness,
Sailing through
With our symbols the only light
Until we fly
Out over the fields
On the other side of midnight
And all our wires
And bits of metal fall off.-
And our souls are bright again,
So new and light
They shoot up –
Up to plant our brilliant flowers
Like stars
In the face of heaven. ~ Jay Woodman

The sky was rarely more than pale blue or violet, with a profusion of mighty, weightless, ever-changing clouds towering up and sailing on it, but it has blue vigour in it, and at a short distance it painted the ranges of hills and the woods a fresh deep blue. ~ Karen Blixen

We were sailing on a sea of sand. ~ Alwyn Hamilton

Our future is like that of the passengers on a small pleasure boat sailing quietly above the Niagara Falls, not knowing that the engines are about to fail. ~ James Lovelock

No one is fit to judge a book until he has rounded Cape Horn in a sailing vessel, until he has bumped into two or three icebergs, until he has been lost in the sands of the desert, until he has spent a few years in the House of the Dead. ~ Van Wyck Brooks

Only whispers can tell of the sweet dreams we knew so well. I'll see you around our dear ocean town. ~ Adam Young

It's not always going to be smooth sailing or everyone will do it. If you have something people want, it should be the perfect recipe for success. ~ Cameron Johnson

being attached in this way to any number of things, we're weighed down by them and dragged down. [16] That is why, if the weather prevents us from sailing, we sit there in a state of anxiety, constantly peering around. 'What wind is this?' The North Wind. And what does it matter to us and to him? 'When will the West Wind blow?' When it so chooses, my good friend, or rather, when Aeolus chooses; for God hasn't appointed you to be controller of the winds, he has appointed Aeolus. [17] What are we to do, then? To make the best of what lies within our power, and deal with everything else as it comes. ~ Epictetus

They were boastful, triumphant; it seemed to both that they had read every book in the world; known every sin, passion, and joy. Civilizations stood round them like flowers ready for picking. Ages lapped at their feet like waves fit for sailing. ~ Virginia Woolf

You have discovered the spiritual universe. Many others have discovered this same world, but each must make the discovery for himself. You are going to have a lot of joy sailing around this world of yours. Don't fight the opinions of others, or waste your time arguing over these things. Follow the inward gleam of your consciousness and you will arrive. ~ Ernest Holmes

He thought about history, the hidden human anxieties behind momentous events. The tiny trivial things that were probably bothering Einstein or Darwin or Newton as they formulated their theories: arguments with the landlady, maybe, or concern over a blocked fireplace. The pilots who bombed Dresden, fretting over a phrase in a letter from back home: What did she mean by that? Or what about Columbus, when he was sailing toward the New Land ... who knows what was on his mind? The last words spoken to him by an old friend, perhaps, a person not even remembered in history books ... ~ Michel Faber

All right boys, let's sail away! Show those bastards how airship pirates fly a ship! ~ Katherine McIntyre

The things she sees are uninteresting to her. Irrelevant. Until there's a clatter of wings. We both look up. There's a pigeon, a woodpigeon, sailing down to roost in a lime tree above us. Time slows. The air thickens and the hawk is transformed. It's as if all her weapons systems were suddenly engaged. Red cross-hairs. She stands on her toes and cranes her neck. This. This flightpath. This thing, she thinks. This is fascinating. Some part of the hawk's young brain has just worked something out, and it has everything to do with death. ~ Helen Macdonald

We have seen death before, Marnie and I, a mountain of ice melting over time, drops of water freezing at your core reminding you every day of that which has vanished, but the despair we know today is a sadness sailing sorrow through every bone and knuckle. ~ Lisa O'Donnell

Thats what a ship is, you know. Its not a keel and a hull and a deck and sails. Thats what a ship needs. But what a ship is. What the Black Pearl really is ... is freedom. ~ Johnny Depp

I HAD one clear day of happiness, and I shall never forget it. Even the miserable ending to it cannot change its quality in my memory; for everything that Jennie and I did was good, and unhappiness came only from the outside. Not many - lovers or friends - can say as much. For friends and lovers are quick to wound, quicker than strangers, even; the heart that opens itself to the world, opens itself to sorrow. I don't think that we spoke of the question of where Jennie was to stay that night. She was sailing in the morning (on the Mauretania, I remember she told me - how strange it was to hear the old name again) and we both seemed to take it for granted that we'd stay together until then. We ~ Robert Nathan

At pier four there is a 34-foot yawl-rigged yacht with two of the three hundred and twenty-four Esthonians who are sailing around in different parts of the world, in boats between 28 and 36 feet long and sending back articles to the Esthonian newspapers. These articles are very popular in Esthonia and bring their authors between a dollar and a dollar and thirty cents a column. They take the place occupied by the baseball or football news in American newspapers and are run under the heading of Sagas of Our Intrepid Voyagers. No well-run yacht basin in Southern waters is complete without at least two sunburned, salt bleached-headed Esthonians who are waiting for a check from their last article. When it comes they will sail to another yacht basin and write another saga. They are very happy too. Almost as happy as the people on the Alzira III. It's great to be an Intrepid Voyager. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

My belief assumed a form that it commonly assumes among the educated people of our time. This belief was expressed by the word "progress." At the time it seemed to me that this word had meaning. Like any living individual, I was tormented by questions of how to live better. I still had not understood that in answering that one must live according to progress, I was talking just like a person being carried along in a boat by the waves and the wind; without really answering, such a person replies to the only important question-"Where are we to steer?"-by saying, "We are being carried somewhere. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Why should Dickie want to come back to subways and taxis and starched collars and a nine-to- five job? Or even a chauffeured car and vacations in Florida and Maine? It wasn't as much fun as sailing a boat in old clothes and being answerable to nobody for the way ~ Patricia Highsmith

to make the sail set properly you must pull the boom down. That'll take those cross wrinkles out." "Is that what those blocks (pulleys) are for hooked to a ring in the kelson close to where the mast is stepped? But they are all muddled up." "Isn't there another ring under the boom, close to the mast?" asked Queen Elizabeth. "Got it," said Captain John. "One block hooks to the ring under the boom, and one to the ring in the bottom of the boat, then it's as easy as anything to haul the boom down. How's that?" "The crinkles in the sail go up and down now, and not across," said Mate Susan. "That's right," said Queen Elizabeth. "The wind will flatten them out as soon as we start sailing. ~ Arthur Ransome

There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good stories seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky. ~ Stephen King

But God!Who could live like this , anyway, with the kind of guesswork that was enough to make a person crazy, just sailing along, taking bumps here and there, no course navigated whatsoever, with any big wave capable of just tipping and sinking you entirely. IT was madness, stipidity, and- (then I saw him) ~ Sarah Dessen

Sailing heart-ships through broken harbors out on the waves of the night, still the searcher must ride the dark horse racing alone in his fright. ~ Neil Young

The hair of his face, on the contrary, carroty and flaming, resembled a growth of copper wire clipped short to the line of the lip; while, no matter how close he shaved, fiery metallic gleams passed, when he moved his head, over the surface of his cheeks. ~ Joseph Conrad

And the present sheared asunder from the past, like an iceberg sheared off from its frozen parent cliffs, and went sailing out to sea in lonely pride. All the past ages had accomplished was as nothing. ~ Aldous Huxley

He especially enjoyed watching Mrs. Sen as she chopped things, seated on newspapers on the living room floor. Instead of a knife she used a blade that curved like the prow of a Viking ship, sailing to battle in distant seas. The blade was hinged at one end to a narrow wooden base. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

On a summers night, I have sat on the balcony drinking Ouzo, watching the ghosts of Greek Heroes sailing past, listening to the rustle of their sail cloths and the gentle lapping of their oars...and lain alongside Pythagoras watching him study the myriad of triangles in the constellations twinkling above us.

Whether it was Crete, the heat, the Ouzo, or a combination, it is unequalled anywhere other than Santorini, in my humble opinion. ~ Phil Simpkin

To be conservative in politics is to take one's bearings not from the latest bright idea about how to make a better world, but by looking carefully at what the past reveals both about the kind of people we are and the problems that concern us. As we get older, we often become conservative in our habits, in our family practices, and in our recognition of the richness of our civilization, but this evolution of our character into a set of habits in no way blocks adventurousness. The old no less than the young may be found starting new enterprises, sailing around the world, and solving arcane academic questions. But it is in the ordinary business of life that we find our excitement, not in foolish collective dreams of political perfection. ~ Kenneth Minogue

And I pray that you no longer seek happiness from the past, but rather you set your sails forward, to a land that is pure and wonderful. I pray that you no longer stare into the shallows of empty promises, but that you dive into the depth of an ocean of guarantees. May you feel the winds of hope, and smell the scent of joy, may your heart be alive again as it was meant to be. For you are with a better captain, you are with a true sailor, a true leader; You are sailing with Christ, and He is always sure to lead us home. ~ T.B. LaBerge

I never see a ship sailing out of the channel, or a gull soaring over the sand-bar, without wishing I were on board the ship or had wings, not like a dove 'to fly away and be at rest,' but like a gull, to sweep out into the very heart of the storm. ~ L.M. Montgomery

I can remain on shore, paralyzed with fear,
or I can raise my sails and dip and soar in the breeze. ~ Richard Bode

Not every man or woman sailing down the river will be a figure of force or significance. Some are merely in the boat with all of us. ~ Guy Gavriel Kay

Hey!" he shouted. "This is my fucking Lake of Death. I have complete and utter exclusive rights to sailing this lake. Get the fuck off my lake! ~ Jeff Noon

If everything is smooth sailing right from the beginning, we cannot become people of substance and character. By surmounting paining setbacks and obstacles, we can create a brilliant history of triumph that will shine forever. That is what makes life so exciting and enjoyable. In any field of endeavour, those who overcome hardships and grow as human beings are advancing towards success and victory in life. ~ Daisaku Ikeda

My wife and I said good-bye the next morning in a little sheltered place among the lumber on the wharf; she was one of your women who never like to do their crying before folks.
She climbed on the pile of lumber and sat down, a little flushed and quivery, to watch us off. I remember seeing her there with the baby till we were well down the channel. I remember noticing the bay as it grew cleaner, and thinking that I would break off swearing; and I remember cursing Bob Smart like a pirate within an hour.
("Kentucky's Ghost") ~ Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

The first mate leaned his massive form toward Dain. "I'm convinced that there's never any harm in a little something to believe in. ~ Micheline Ryckman

So exquisitely perfect was the darkness of the heavens above that one would have difficulty believing it was a prison to the passengers and crew of The Black Witch. ~ Micheal Rivers

[Sailing term]
"Going through life on broad reach"
[could not be more relaxed]... ~ Unk.

I love Africa....... Each day each breath, she consumes me. I have never changed so much In such a short time Each day I feel more part of her. Her colour, smell, her smiles , the ever changing landscapes. Vast deserts rolling hills plaines & Mountains. Her beauty and her majesty. Like sweet wine flowing through my veins, my heart sings as I wave to all those faces going by. Back home to my Grandmothers Birth place. They said "welcome home", those village boys. How did they know? You all said I would cry, I thought no, but yes I often do. Not for their pain but for their happiness . I cry now, together hearts will sing ," I love Africa". See her now as I write.. Kilimanjaro , it doesn't get much better .Tears on a hard mans face. There is no time but now , no words just peace. Thousands of smiling faces, the mass of souls are singing out . Yes I see and feel it now.... In those trees I sense the Spirits of our saving , could it be our looking for? Sailing ships a familiar shore, now I'm crying happy and singing . Thoughts intense of please no more. I love Africa. An epiphany I can't explain .Not like the ancient rituals , sound of rain, and men together by campfires. Beginning to end but there really is no such thing as time, just imaginings. We still love sitting by the camp fire and we love listening to the rain? I love Africa the Eden and our Birthplace , Man.
How can I explain to you my friend what I have seen and felt unless you too have seen it all ... Africa. ~ Michael Burke

I'll always be there, Anna, in every ship you see sailing past. I'll be the wind in its sail. ~ Jade Parker

He is a man without a past sailing in a strange sea in a world where the stars have come loose in the firmament. ~ Doug Dorst

Problems," lamented Duncan. "They never seem to end."
"Do they even end in the first place?"
Duncan grimaced, "If only we know when they begin, we might be able to nip it in the bud before it putrefies."
"Not everyone recognizes the bud when it manifests itself," interjected Juliette.
"Quite true," agreed Duncan.
"But what is life without hurdles?" Juliette remarked, philosophical.
"Some of us simple folk prefer smooth sailing lives," he deadpanned.
"What can I say?" she smiled, shrugging. "To each his own. ~ Alexis Lawrence

I think of bad news as a huge bird, with the wings of a crow and the face of my Grade Four school teacher, sparse bun, rancid teeth, wrinkly frown, pursed mouth and all, sailing around the world under cover of darkness pleased to be the bearer of ill tidings, carrying a basket of rotten eggs, and knowing- as the sun comes up- exactly where to drop them. On me, for one. ~ Margaret Atwood

Design has taken the place of what sailing used to be. ~ Dennis Conner

There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes where life is not painful. ~ Fernando Pessoa

But just then the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared behind the jagged crest of a beetling, pine-clad rock, and by its light I saw around us a ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling red tongues, with long, sinewy limbs and shaggy hair. They were ~ Bram Stoker

The ocean is an object of no small terror. ~ Edmund Burke

The S.S. Sierra was a ten-thousand-ton vessel. Today, lifeboats bigger than the Sierra are found on the Queen Mary and other luxury liners. ~ Fred Allen

The sea is the same as it has been since before men ever went on it in boats. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Home is like the ship at sea, Sailing on eternally; Oft the anchor forth we cast, But can never make it fast. ~ Charles Dickens

Even though I grew up surfing and sailing in Southern California, I was born horse crazy. ~ Bo Derek

I could feel her behind me. I knew she was there, but I didn't dare turn around. A book I read about sailing ships said that the lookout man sometimes couldn't see through the fog, but he could tell they were getting close to an iceberg when the air would turn cold. The air turned cold when Miz Ort came near, too. ~ Floyd Wesley Brosman

They came there regularly every evening drawn by some need. It was as if the water floated off and set sailing thoughts which had grown stagnant on dry land, and gave to their bodies even some sort of physical relief. First, the pulse of colour flooded the bay with blue, and the heart expanded with it and the body swam, only the next instant to be checked and chilled by the prickly blackness on the ruffled waves. Then, up behind the great black rock, almost every evening spurted irregularly, so that one had to watch for it and it was a delight when it came, a fountain of white water; and then while one waited for that, one watched, on the pale semicircular beach, wave after wave shedding again and again smoothly, a film of mother-of-pearl. ~ Virginia Woolf

The sea hates a coward. ~ Eugene O'Neill

For me, my craft is sailing on,Through mists to-day, clear seas anon.Whate'er the final harbor be'T is good to sail upon the sea! ~ John Kendrick Bangs

If a man must be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most. A small sailing craft is not only beautiful, it is seductive and full of strange promise and the hint of trouble. ~ E.B. White

I return to the sprinklers and sit down. George plunks down next to me. "Did you know that a bird-eating tarantula is as big as your hand?"
"Jase doesn't have one of those, does he?"
George gives me his sunniest smile. "No. He useta have a reg'lar tarantula named Agnes, but she" - his voice drops mournfully - "died."
"I'm sure she's in tarantula heaven now," I assure him hastily, shuddering to think what that might look like.
Mrs. Garret's van pulls in behind the motorcycle, disgorging what I assume are Duff and Andy, both red-faced and windblown. Judging by their life jackets, they've been at sailing camp.
George and Harry, my loyal fans, rave to their mother about my accomplishments, while Patsy immediately bursts into tears, points an accusing finger at her mother, and wails, "Boob."
"It was her first word." Mrs. Garret takes her from me, heedless of Patsy's damp swimsuit. "There's one for the baby book. ~ Huntley Fitzpatrick

Pretend you're not alone, Like you are center stage on Broadway. 'Cause when you're on your own a little opera goes a long way. ~ Sky Sailing Adam Young

Come, cuddle your head on my shoulder, dear, your head like the golden rod, and we will go sailing away from here to the beautiful Land Of Nod. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

My mother is massively into sailing, so we always had Musto clothes, and it went on from there, really. I wouldn't say it's a career in fashion. The range is all day-to-day stuff that I'd put on and use myself. ~ Zara Phillips

Aboard a sailing ship sometime around the War of 1812, ~ Kate Milford

When I was 11 years old, my parents wanted me to do something besides get in trouble. So they enrolled me in sailing classes at the Sea Shell Association in Santa Barbara, Calif. From the moment I climbed into that 8-foot dinghy in 1952, I knew instinctively what to do and sensed I had done it before. ~ David Crosby

How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! In such places standing alone on the mountain-top it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make - leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents or piled stone - we all dwell in a house of one room - the world with the firmament for its roof - and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track. ~ John Muir

Tripp was on the sailing team, a third-generation Bonesman, a gentleman and a scholar, a purebred golden retriever - dopey, glossey, and expensive. He was rumpled and rosy as a healthy infant, his hair sandy, his skin tan from whichever island he'd spent winter break on. He had the ease of someone who had always been and would always be just fine, a boy of a thousand second chances. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World. ~ Christopher Columbus

Much can they praise the trees so straight and high, The sailing pine,the cedar proud and tall, The vine-prop elm, the poplar never dry, The builder oak, sole king of forests all, The aspin good for staves, the cypress funeral, The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors And poets sage, the fir that weepest still, The yew obedient to the bender's will, The birch for shafts, the sallow for the mill, The myrrh sweet-bleeding in the bitter wound, The warlike beech, the ash for nothing ill, The fruitful olive, and the platane round, The carver holm, the maple seldom inward sound. ~ Edmund Spenser

The happiest hour a sailor sees Is when he's down At an inland town, With his Nancy on his knees, yo ho! And his arm around her waist! ~ W.S. Gilbert

Oh, trust me Sydney Tar Ponds, you aren't the first Personification to be forgotten by somebody ordinary," Mearth sighed with a falsely-reassuring smile. Alecto stepped back from her, glaring hatefully. "Sydney Tar Ponds," Mearth added, "I've had so many ordinary people as friends in my life that by now I've forgotten all their names. At first it was difficult ... very sad ... to see them always leaving, dying, disappearing, ignoring, but after a while I realized that they weren't worth the trouble. I'd rather be in the company of other Personifications. At least they aren't always dropping dead like houseflies or sailing away to parts unknown. Nil sa saol seo ach ceo, i ni bheimid beo, ach seal beag gearr. Wouldn't you agree?"
"No," Alecto told her. "I think you're insane. ~ Rebecca McNutt

I cannot understand the principle at all,' said Stephen. 'I should very much like to show it to Captain Aubrey, who is so very well versed in the mathematics and dynamics of sailing. Landlord, pray ask him whether he is willing to part with the instrument.'
Not on your fucking life,' said the Aboriginal, snatching the boomerang and clasping it to his bosom.
He says he does not choose to dispose of it, your honour,' said the landlord. 'But never fret. I have a dozen behind the bar that I sell to ingenious travelers for half a guinea. Choose any one that takes your fancy, sit, and Bennelong will throw it to prove it comes back, a true homing pigeon, as we say. Won't you?' This much louder, in the black man's ear.
Won't I what?'
Throw it for the gentleman.'
Give um dram.'
Sir, he says he will be happy to throw it for you; and hopes you will encourage him with a tot of rum. (pp. 353-354) ~ Patrick O'Brian

It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

The sea is as near as we come to another world. ~ Anne Stevenson

When I work, I work very hard. When I don't work, I have to do something where my endeavor can totally take me off what I do professionally, like sailing. It takes all your attention. ~ Helmut Jahn

To reach a port we must set sail ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

One of our favorite examples of the value of Nothing is an incident in the life of the Japanese emperor Hirohito. Now, being emperor in one of the most frantically Confucianist countries in the world is not necessarily all that relaxing. From early morning until late at night, practically every minute of the emperor's time is filled in with meetings, audiences, tours, inspections, and who-knows-what. And through a day so tightly scheduled that it would make a stone wall seem open by comparison, the emperor must glide, like a great ship sailing in a steady breeze.

In the middle of a particularly busy day, the emperor was driven to a meeting hall for an appointment of some kind. But when he arrived, there was no one there. The emperor walked into the middle of the great hall, stood silently for a moment, then bowed to the empty space. He turned to his assistants, a large smile on his face. "We must schedule more appointments like this," he told them. "I haven't enjoyed myself so much in a long time. ~ Benjamin Hoff

Sailing is a big outlet for me. ~ Craig Venter

The spruce and cedar on its shores, hung with gray lichens, looked at a distance like the ghosts of trees. Ducks were sailing here and there on its surface, and a solitary loon, like a more living wave, - a vital spot on the lake's surface, - laughed and frolicked, and showed its straight leg, for our amusement. ~ Henry David Thoreau

They found security in letting go rather than in holding on and, in so doing, developed an attitude toward life that might be called psychophysical judo. Nearly twenty-five centuries ago, the Chinese sages Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu had called it wu-wei, which is perhaps best translated as "action without forcing." It is sailing in the stream of the Tao, or course of nature, and navigating the currents of li (organic pattern) - a word that originally signified the natural markings in jade or the grain in wood. As this attitude spread and prevailed in the wake of Vibration Training, people became more and more indulgent about eccentricity in life-style, tolerant of racial and religious differences, and adventurous in exploring unusual ways of loving. ~ Alan W. Watts

To the question, "When were your spirits at the lowest ebb?" the obvious answer seemed to be, "When the gin gave out." ~ Francis Chichester

To my crew: Please be reasonable and do it my way.
The Captain ~ Rusty Mills

I wrapped my fingers around the first light I saw and felt all at once so happy and so sad and so free. My hand was cold somehow as I lifted the tiny star out of the water and brought its trembling, burning form to my face. I kissed it gently and laughed like a child as my face seemed to become angelic for a few moments. The star laughed back at me in little sweet notes, and I released it back to the sea. I can still feel the star in my hands to this day. You can have your noctiluca scintillans, your petty protists in the sea. I prefer to sail among the stars. ~ K.B. Ezzell

Each in His Own Tongue
A fire mist and a planet,
A crystal and a cell,
A jellyfish and a saurian,
And caves where the cave men dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty,
And a face turned from the clod -
Some call it Evolution,
And others call it God.
A haze on the far horizon,
The infinite, tender sky,
The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields,
And the wild geese sailing high;
And all over upland and lowland
The charm of the goldenrod -
Some of us call it Autumn,
And others call it God.

Like tides on a crescent sea beach,
When the moon is new and thin,
Into our hearts high yearnings
Come welling and surging in;
Come from the mystic ocean,
Whose rim no foot has trod -
Some of us call it Longing,
And others call it God.

A picket frozen on duty,
A mother starved for her brood,
Socrates drinking the hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood;
And millions who, humble and nameless,
The straight, hard pathway plod -
Some call it Consecration,
And others call it God. ~ William Herbert Carruth

I'd love to have a proper sailing boat and go around the world. ~ Jonathan Powell

If our lives were smooth sailing without painful hardships, unexpected disappointments or frustrating challenges, we wouldn't have our own personal testimony as credible evidence revealing God's omnipotent power. ~ Dana Arcuri

They were two ships sailing in opposite diretions, having met for a short time in the middle of the voyage, and he could no sooner "keep her" than capture the wind. ~ Alexandra Bracken

Up to a few years ago nearly all the literature about Oceania was written by papalagi and other outsiders. Our islands were and still are a goldmine for romantic novelists and filmmakers, bar-room journalists and semi-literate tourists, sociologists and Ph.D. students, remittance men and sailing evangelists, UNO experts, and colonial administrators and their well-groomed spouses. Much of this literature ranges from the hilariously romantic through the pseudo-scholarly to the infuriatingly racist; from the noble savage literary school through Margaret Mead and all her comings of age, Somerset Maugham's puritan missionaries/drunks/and saintly whores and James Michener's rascals and golden people, to the stereotyped childlike pagan who needs to be steered to the Light. ~ Albert Wendt

The first day of the West Line, April 5th, falls upon a Friday, - the least auspicious day of the week to begin any enterprise, such as sailing from Spithead, for example. To stand at the Post Mark'd West, and turn to face West, can be a trial for those sentimentally inclin'd, as well as for ev'ryone nearby. It is possible to feel the combin'd force, in perfect Enfilade, of ev'ry future second unelaps'd, ev'ry Chain yet to be stretch'd, every unknown Event to be undergone, - the unmodified Terror of keeping one's Latitude. ~ Thomas Pynchon

After I had my daughter, I kind of got comfortable with motherhood and had time to focus on something else then I started "Sailing Souls" with Fisticuffs, who produced the majority of the mixtape. I just wanted to put out something, like it wasnt really for, you know exposure or to get a deal or really anything like that. ~ Jhene Aiko

Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we could for ever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise in the voyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of the demon phantom that, some time or other, swims before all human hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed. ~ Herman Melville

Most sailing ships take what they call trainees, who pay to be part of the crew. The Picton Castle takes people who are absolutely raw recruits. But you can't just ride along. You're learning to steer the ship, navigation; you're pulling lines, keeping a lookout; in the galley you're cooking. ~ Billy Campbell

SWEETEST IN THE GALE
by
Michelle Valois

After Emily Dickinson

You won't lose your hair, I heard at the start of treatment, and though I didn't, I lost a litany of other lesser and greater luxuries - saliva, stamina, taste buds, my voice - but my hair, during that chilly sojourn in the land of extremity to which I had sailed on a strange and stormy sea, my hair was not taken from me.

Had it been, I would have perched one of those 18th century wigs on my head, such as those worn by the French aristocracy, measuring three, four, even five feet high and stuffed, as they were known to be, with all sorts of things: ribbons, pearls, jewels, flowers, tunes without words, reproductions of great sailing vessels, my soul inside a little bird cage - ornaments selected to satisfy a theme: the signs of the Zodiac (à la Zodiaque) or the discovery of a new vaccine (à l'inoculation) or, as was the case in June of 1782, the first successful hot air balloon flight by the brothers Michel and Etienne Montgolfier.

Regarde, I exclaim to my ladies in waiting, pointing to the sky on that bright afternoon as the balloon, made of linen and paper, rises some 6,000 feet. Later, a duck, then a sheep, and finally a human is carried away. I watch, inspired, hopeful, whispering, lest my doctors overhear: when the storm turns sore, and that little bird escapes her little bird cage and is abashed without reckoning, I will sail away in my balloon, prepared, ~ Michelle Valois