waves Quotes

“She would never leave her mark on Mammy’s heart the way her brothers had, because Mammy’s heart was like a pallid beach where Laila’s footprints would forever wash away beneath the waves of sorrow that swelled and crashed, swelled and crashed.”

“She waved at all the people on the train & later, when she saw they didn’t wave back, she started singing songs to herself & it went that way the whole day & she couldn’t remember having a better time in her life.”

“But sometimes, unexpectedly, grief pounded over me in waves that left me gasping; and when the waves washed back, I found myself looking out over a brackish wreck which was illumined in a light so lucid, so heartsick and empty, that I could hardly remember that the world had ever been anything but dead.”

“The wind blew across the water, shattering the tips of the waves and shooting ice-sparklets north with the storm. ‘Kapugen!’ she called. No one answered. Kapugen was gone. The earth was empty and bleak.”

“He was enjoying his trip immensely. It was beautiful weather. Day and night he moved up and down, up and down, on waves as big as mountains, and he was full of wonder, full of enterprise, and full of love for life.”

“He looked back at Amos on the elephant’s head. Tears were rolling down the great whale’s cheeks. The tiny mouse had tears in his eyes too. ‘Goodbye, dear friend,’ squeaked Amos. ‘Goodbye, dear friend,’ rumbled Boris, and he disappeared in the waves. They knew they might never meet again. They knew they would never forget each other.”

“The Great Storm-Cat grew quiet: gone was his hunger for hunting, for making his meal of the mice-men. Only the pleasure of the purring remained. Then the Great Storm-Cat began to purr with Mowzer, and as the soft sound grew, the winds waned and the waves weakened.”

“All day they fished in a seething sea. The waves were so high and the clouds were so low that they soon lost sight of the shore. And all the time the Great Storm-Cat played with the little boat, striking it and then losing it, but never quite sinking it. And whenever his claws grew to sharp, Mowzer would sing to him to soften the edge of his anger.”

“And men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, yet pass over the mystery of themselves without a thought.”

“We may sink and settle on the waves. The sea will drum in my ears. The white petals will be darkened with sea water. They will float for a moment and then sink. Rolling me over the waves will shoulder me under. Everything falls in a tremendous shower, dissolving me.”

“Beneath us lie the lights of the herring fleet. The cliffs vanish. Rippling small, rippling grey, innumerable waves spread beneath us. I touch nothing. I see nothing.”

“It was Little Toot. He was not fighting the waves. He was riding on top of them, bouncing from one wave to the next like a rubber ball. The pounding hurt like anything, but Little Toot kept right on going.”

“Then, Grandmarina waved her fan, and the Queen came in most splendidly dressed, and the seventeen young Princes and Princesses, no longer grown out of their clothes, came in newly fitted out from top to toe, with tucks in everything to admit of its being let out.”

“Soon I felt water around my ankles. Then it washed to my knees. It would go back and then crash against us again. Timothy was taking the full blows of the storm, sheltering me with his body. When the water receded, it would tug at us, and Timothy’s strength would fight against it. I could feel the steel in his arms as the water tried to suck us away.”

“By now the force of the storm was spent and the wind had died, but the sea was still seething and angry. The waves rolled into the bay from Samson, gathering and rearing as they neared the shore before they curled over to hurl themselves into the hissing sand.”

“So they stumbled along drenched with the waves, and clustered round Elzevir, for they looked on him as a leader, because he knew the ways of the sea and was the only one left calm in this dreadful strait.”