Quotes & Sayings About Antarctica

It rarely snows because Antarctica is a desert. An iceberg means it's tens of millions of years old and has calved from a glacier. (This is why you must love life: one day you're offering up your social security number to the Russia Mafia; two weeks later you're using the word calve as a verb.) I saw hundreds of them, cathedrals of ice, rubbed like salt licks; shipwrecks, polished from wear like marble steps at the Vatican; Lincoln Centers capsized and pockmarked; airplane hangars carved by Louise Nevelson; thirty-story buildings, impossibly arched like out of a world's fair; white, yes, but blue, too, every blue on the color wheel, deep like a navy blazer, incandescent like a neon sign, royal like a Frenchman's shirt, powder like Peter Rabbit's cloth coat, these icy monsters roaming the forbidding black. — Maria Semple

[In Adelie Land, Antarctica, a howling river of] wind, 50 miles wide, blows off the plateau, month in and month out, at an average velocity of 50 m.p.h. As a source of power this compares favorably with 6,000 tons of water falling every second over Niagara Falls. I will not further anticipate some H. G. Wells of the future who will ring the antarctic with power-producing windmills; but the winds of the Antarctic have to be felt to be believed, and nothing is quite impossible to physicists and engineers. — Frank Debenham

As a scientist, my attention became totally focused on global warming some 15 years ago by the elegant and powerful measurements of carbon dioxide trapped in ice cores taken as much as 2 miles deep from the great East Antarctica ice sheet. — John Olver

First you fall in love with Antarctica, and then it breaks your heart. — Kim Stanley

I got a huge knot in my stomach because if Antarctica could talk, it would be saying only one thing: you don't belong here. (277) — Maria Semple

Even the cleanest air, at the centre of the South Pacific or somewhere over Antarctica, has two hundred thousand assorted bits and pieces in every lungful. And this count rises to two million or more in the thick of the Serengeti migration, or over a six-lane highway during rush hour in downtown Los Angeles. — Lyall Watson

But given that depression happened to me, and I did have support, I found it was possible after a time, to achieve a kind of joy totally disconnected from the world. I wanted to be unavailable and in that place without the pain. I still want it. It is coloured white and filled with a singing silence. It is an endless ice-rink. It is Antarctica. — Jenny Diski

Does Greenpeace think it can stop whaling in Antarctica by publicly eating whale meat and declaring it delicious? What are these people thinking? — Paul Watson

Great God! this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority. — Robert Falcon Scott

The winter drove them mad. It drove every man mad who had ever lived through it; there was only ever the question of degree. The sun disappeared, and you could not leave the tunnels, and everything and everyone you loved was ten thousand miles away. At best, a man suffered from strange lapses in judgment and perception, finding himself at the mirror about to comb his hair with a mechanical pencil, stepping into his undershirt, boiling up a pot of concentrated orange juice for tea. Most men felt a sudden blaze of recovery in their hearts at the first glimpse of a pale hem of sunlight on the horizon in mid-September. But there were stories, apocryphal, perhaps, but far from dubious, of men in past expeditions who sank so deeply into the drift of their own melancholy that they were lost forever. And few among the wives and families of the men who returned from a winter on the Ice would have said what they got back was identical to what they had sent down there. — Michael Chabon

In a plane again, Ashley thought sourly, her nose pressed to the window. Down below, glacier fought granite from horizon to horizon. This was the final leg of the two-day journey. Yesterday, they had flown the eight hundred miles from Buenos Aires to Esperanza, the Argentine army base on the tip on an Antarctic Peninsula. There, Ashley had her first taste of Antarctic air - like ice water poured into her lungs. — James Rollins

I wanted to do with Antarctica was say let's hit the reset button on that and see what happens to your creative process. Let's go to the most remote place that you can imagine, set up a studio and see what music comes out of it. — DJ Spooky

Antarctica is otherworldly, like nothing I've ever seen before. Stark, cold, beautiful desolation. — Mark Hoppus

Consider this: I can go to Antarctica and get cash from an ATM without a glitch, but should I fall ill during my travels, a hospital there could not access my medical records or know what medications I am on. — Nathan Deal

I went to Antarctica on a science research boat just to sort of clear my head. — Orlando Bloom

Antarctica, one of the things that was so remarkable about it was that the ice itself is a kind of pure geometry, so say, for example, if I was facing someone wearing I don't know, a Joy Division t-shirt with the mountains on it or something like that. — DJ Spooky

I think part of the appeal of Antarctica is experiencing some sort of power, the forces of the natural world. — Jon Krakauer

The literature of the emperor penguin is as forbidding, as inaccessible, as the frozen heart of Antarctica itself. Its beauties may be unearthly, but they are not for us. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Antarctica. You know, that giant continent at the bottom of the earth that's ruled by penguins and seals. — C.B. Cook

They have demons on Antarctica?" "Yeah," Ash breathed. "It wasn't always covered by ice, that was just a precaution when they buried them. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Life has evolved to thrive in environments that are extreme only by our limited human standards: in the boiling battery acid of Yellowstone hot springs, in the cracks of permanent ice sheets, in the cooling waters of nuclear reactors, miles beneath the Earth's crust, in pure salt crystals, and inside the rocks of the dry valleys of Antarctica. — Jill Tarter

This is the deep-space commercial tug Nostromo, registration number one eight zero, two four six, en route to Earth with bulk cargo crude petroleum and appropriate refinery. Calling Antarctica traffic control. Do you read me? Over. — Alan Dean Foster

That's the way it is in our house, everybody knowing things but pretending they don't. — Claire Keegan

I had a dream when i was 22 that someday i would go to the region of ice and snow and go on and on till i came to one of the poles of the earth — Ernest Shackleton

Now that Dad was crying, I was, like, both of us can't be sitting on rocks in Antarctica crying. It's going to be OK, Dad. — Maria Semple

Why go to Antarctica, why do a film like 'Grizzly Man'? It's the sheer joy of storytelling - it's the urge. — Werner Herzog

I love ice, when I was in Antarctica many decades ago, I got to see a lot of ice. And the one thing that impressed me -because I love to talk about ice - is that it has a color. — Ira Flatow

Some journalists have described the South Pole as 'hell on earth.' Others refer to my time here as 'an ordeal.' They would be surprised to know how beautiful Antarctica has seemed to me, with its waves of ice in a hundred shades of blue and white, its black winter sky, its ecstatic wheel of stars. They would never understand how the lights of the Dome welcomed me from a distance, or how often I danced and sang and laughed here with my friends. And how I was not afraid. — Jerri Nielsen

For years, I never knowingly went on a holiday. When I travelled, it was for work. Now I am a huge advocate, particularly to places which have amazing wildlife, such as Antarctica, India and Patagonia. — Miranda Richardson

And you, Sarah Jacobi" - he pointed to a woman with white robes and spiky black hair - "you were sent to Antarctica for causing the tsunami in the Indian Ocean. — Rick Riordan

Although I don't use it nearly so much anymore, I've decided, five years down the line, that Mr. Treadstone's verdict on 'kind of' was kind of unjust. Obviously, this phrase can be redundant or reductive, or just plain stupid in some sentences, but not in all sentences. I wouldn't, for example, use a sentence like 'Antarctica is kind of cold', or 'Hitler was kind of evil'. But sometimes, things aren't black and white. And sometimes 'kind of' expresses this better than any other phrase. For example, when I tell you that my mother was kind of peculiar, I can think of no better way of putting this. — Gavin Extence

IT IS STARTLING to think that all Europe once looked like this Puszcza. To enter it is to realize that most of us were bred to a pale copy of what nature intended. Seeing elders with trunks seven feet wide, or walking through stands of the tallest trees here - gigantic Norway spruce, shaggy as Methuselah - should seem as exotic as the Amazon or Antarctica to someone raised among the comparatively puny, second-growth woodlands found throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Instead, what's astonishing is how primally familiar it feels. And, on some cellular level, how complete. — Alan Weisman

Tycoons were sipping cocktails over ice cubes shipped from Antarctica. — Anonymous

In Antarctica, it looks like the total volume (of ice) is increasing and if that's true, that's probably why you're getting increased ice moving away from the center of the continent and therefore these big icebergs and stuff are breaking off. — Harrison Schmitt

Through endurance we conquer. — Ernest Shackleton

Why did you want me to dress warmly?" she asks. "Are you taking me to a Siberian prison?"
"Nope."
"Abandoned research station in Antarctica?"
"Nope."
"You're taking me to practice for our two-person skeleton race at the Olympics."
"Yes. — Stephanie Perkins

A killer on the payroll isn't good for business — L.A. Larkin

There is no home left for universal souls, except perhaps in Antarctica or on the high seas. — J.M. Coetzee

Three kilometres beneath the camp, sub-glacial Lake Ellsworth, and whatever secret it may hold, is sealed within a frozen tomb. — L.A. Larkin

I function better in the jungle in Amazonia or Antarctica or Alaska or the Sahara desert. An artificial environment like a studio has never attracted me. I could work in a studio, but I would never really feel at home. — Werner Herzog

The swim at Deception Island was by far the hardest swim I've ever done. Antarctica is a very unforgiving environment. If you don't train properly, you'll die. — Lewis Gordon Pugh

Antarctica is one of the most remote and beautiful places on earth. I don't think that everyone should go there. I also think that we need to respect it as a kind of a national park for the planet. It should be you know put in parentheses. — DJ Spooky

I have actually led more expeditions to Antarctica than Scott, Amundsen, and Shackleton put together. — Paul Watson

Geography is crucial for my work. I went to Antarctica and took a studio to several of the main ice fields to make field recordings of ice to create a symphony - acoustic portraits of ice. — DJ Spooky

More people should visit Antarctica, metaphorically speaking, on their own. That is one of the conclusions I have reached, one of my recommendations: explore something, even if it's just a bookshelf. Make a stab in the dark. Read off the beaten path. Your attention is precious. Be careful of other people trying to direct how you dispense it. Confront your own values. Decide what it is you are looking for an then look for it. Perform connoisseurship. We all need to create our own vocabulary of appreciation, or we are trapped by the vocabulary of others. — Phyllis Rose

On a personal level, one of the main reasons I had wanted to cross Antarctica alone was to find out where my limits lay. If I failed because I had found those limits by being unable to continue for mental or physical reasons I would, at least, be returning home with some kind of answer. To fail because I had run out of time was a failure by logistics and as such, answered nothing. I would be left with the same question I had arrived with and that would be the bitter pill, the true failure. I couldn't imagine ever wanting to repeat this journey and so the question would likely always remain unanswered. This was my one and only opportunity and it would be wasted. — Felicity Aston

The best experience that we have on Earth is the fact that we have scientific stations, weathering over stations down in the Antarctic for almost the entire 20th century to learn how to exist in exceedingly hazardous conditions; and the Moon is far more hazardous than Antarctica. At least they have water there. — Edgar Mitchell

Adventure books are my personal favorites. 'The Endurance,' a story about Ernest Shackleton's legendary Antarctica expedition, or 'Into Thin Air,' Jon Krakauer's personal account of the 1996 disaster on Mt Everest, are two notables. — Dean Karnazes

Discovering Antarctica, its penguin kings and icy spires ... — Marianne Moore

Great God! This is an awful place. — Robert Falcon Scott

Sea ice conditions have remained stable in Antarctica generally. — Ian Allison

Birds were flying from continent to continent long before we were. They reached the coldest place on Earth, Antarctica, long before we did. They can survive in the hottest of deserts. Some can remain on the wing for years at a time. They can girdle the globe. Now, we have taken over the earth and the sea and the sky, but with skill and care and knowledge, we can ensure that there is still a place on Earth for birds in all their beauty and variety - if we want to ... And surely, we should. — David Attenborough

I hate this little town. It's so small, too small. Everything about it is small. The people here have small ideas, small dreams; they all want to marry each other and live here forever.'
'What do you want to do?' I asked.
'I want to leave as soon as I can. I think I was born with a suitcase.'
...
'Where do you want to go?' I asked.
'Everywhere. I want to walk on the Great Wall of China, I want to walk to the top of the pyramids in Egypt, I want to swim in every ocean, I want to climb Mount Everest, I want to go on an African safari, I want to ride a dog sled in Antarctica. I want all of it; every single piece of everything. — Sherman Alexie

The only continent with a growth rate lower than Europe is Antarctica. — Gisela Stuart

Felix believed that the answer to every problem involved penguins; but it wasn't fair to birds, and I was getting tired of teleporting them back home. Somewhere in Antarctica, a whole flock of Magellanic penguins were undergoing psychotherapy. — Rick Riordan

Recently a piece of Martian rock has been recovered from Antarctica. NASA has discovered fossils of bacteria-like organisms on this rock, suggesting that life could have come on earth from outer space. — Girish Chandra

The longest journey is not the journey from Asia to Antarctica, but it is the journey to know yourself. — Debasish Mridha

Egypt is the First Nome. New York is the twenty-first. What's the last one, the Three-hundred-and-sixtieth?" "That would be Antarctica," Zia said. "A punishment assignment. Nothing there but a couple of cold magicians and some magic penguins." "Magic penguins?" "Don't ask. — Rick Riordan

When I started 'Case Histories,' the characters were all going to Antarctica on a cruise. The first part was called 'Embarkation.' It was supposed to be about everyone preparing to embark on the cruise, but it mushroomed into an entire book. — Kate Atkinson

The fact that the Antarctica is beginning to look more like it's part of the story, as well. — Stephen Schneider

Antarctica is a very alien environment, and you can't survive here more than minutes if you're not equipped properly and doing the right thing all the time. — Jon Krakauer

All you need to know about Antarctica is it's three horizontal stripes. On the bottom, there's the stripe for the water, which is anywhere from black to dark gray. And on top of that, there's a stripe for the land, which is usually black or white. Then there's a stripe for the sky, which is some kind of gray or blue. — Maria Semple

I should kill myself. Things would be better if I did. For me anyway. I don't know how it would affect global warming or penguins in Antarctica. But it might help me. — Noah Cicero

Market studies suggest space tourism-a rubbernecker's trip to earth orbit-is likely to draw 50,000 passengers a year if the ticket can be pushed below $25,000. That's what tens of thousands of people spend each year on competing trips, such as round-the-world cruises on luxury liners and adventure tours to Antarctica or Mount Everest. — G. Harry Stine

Even at brightest noon, it's always
Full moon in my country. In these streets of
Tropic stone and Malay blood, daylight is
Moonlight mugging me on every corner
Where human shadows loll in an atmosphere
Both lunar and lunatic.
And while from either pole we're
Half a world and seas away, this
Might as well be
An arctic archipelago, where as
The sun burns the colder it gets.
This might as well be
Equatorial Antarctica... — Luis H. Francia

As far as we know in the history of this cycle, the first human being to set foot on Antarctica was an American sealer named Capt. John Davis, in 1821." "Is it possible," asked Sinclair, "that parts of the historical record are missing?" "Anything's possible, but when scholars came across this map in Turkey in 1929, they speculated that it had been drawn from even earlier documents that are now unknown. My thought is that perhaps those earlier documents dated from the 10th Cycle somehow. What I'd like to find in the library is confirmation that the 10th Cyclers knew of Antarctica, and perhaps that they left representations of the geography of the globe that were known earlier in our own cycle. — J.C. Ryan

In New Zealand we had this colossal squid, which was discovered just off the shores of New Zealand, between New Zealand and Antarctica back in 2003. It's the biggest squid ever found, and I know that there's things living down in the depths of the ocean that do explain the Kraken - you know, these giant things that people saw back in the day, that could take ships down - and so I know that there's stuff out there, and I like the idea that we haven't solved everything yet. — Rhys Darby

Antarctica has this mythic weight. It resides in the collective unconscious of so many people, and it makes this huge impact, just like outer space. It's like going to the moon. — Jon Krakauer

Was it because a lot of the heat went into melting Arctic sea ice or parts of Greenland and Antarctica, and other glaciers? Was it because the heat was buried in the ocean and sequestered, perhaps well below the surface? ... Perhaps all of these things are going on? — Kevin E. Trenberth

Ten percent of the big fish still remain. There are still some blue whales. There are still some krill in Antarctica. There are a few oysters in Chesapeake Bay. Half the coral reefs are still in pretty good shape, a jeweled belt around the middle of the planet. There's still time, but not a lot, to turn things around. — Sylvia Earle

I am hopeful that Antarctica in its symbolic robe of white will shine forth as a continent of peace as nations working together there in the cause of science set an example of international cooperation. — Richard E. Byrd

Nearly 90 per cent of the planet's ice is in Antarctica and most of the rest is in Greenland. — Bill Bryson

The instinct of the thief is most strongly marked in the Skua tribe, and I am afraid that the mere love of thieving alone actuates them on many occasions. — George Murray Levick

It won't be the same for me," I whispered, half to myself. "You won't let me be like that. We'll live in Antarctica."
Edward snorted, breaking the tension. "Penguins. Lovely. — Stephenie Meyer

The genus Drosophila is one of the great success stories. There's hundreds of species within the genus. They're on every continent except Antarctica, they're in tropical rain forests, they're in deserts, they've evolved many exotic mating behaviors, and they're capable of incredibly long-distance flights. — Michael Dickinson

I swear, Daimons or not, if you don't behave, Z, I'm going to send you to Antarctica and leave you there to rot. (Acheron)
Ooo. I'm terrified. Those killer penguins and hairy seals are really scary. (Zarek) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Watching 40 mile chunks of ice break off of Antarctica will change your life forever, but realizing that driving a car, or flying a plane, or having a nice steak, or drinking from a plastic bottle all contributed to the destruction of the environment - it's a bit complex, but music needs to pave the way for getting people to think about this kind of complexity. I'm just doing my share. — DJ Spooky

The Atlantic is a stormy moat, and the Mediterranean,
The blue pool in the old garden,
More than five thousand years has drunk sacrifice
Of ships and blood and shines in the sun; but here the Pacific:
The ships, planes, wars are perfectly irrelevant.
Neither our present blood-feud with the brave dwarfs
Nor any future world-quarrel of westering
And eastering man, the bloody migrations, greed of power, battle-falcons,
Are a mote of dust in the great scale-pan.
Here from this mountain shore, headland beyond stormy headland plunging like
dolphins through the grey sea-smoke
Into pale sea, look west at the hill of water: it is half the planet: this
dome, this half-globe, this bulging
Eyeball of water, arched over to Asia,
Australia and white Antarctica: those are the eyelids that never close; this
is the staring unsleeping
Eye of the earth, and what it watches is not our wars. — Robinson Jeffers

If Antarctica were music it would be Mozart. Art, and it would be Michelangelo. Literature, and it would be Shakespeare. And yet it is something even greater; the only place on earth that is still as it should be. May we never tame it. — Andrew Denton

Highway One, Antarctica is a wonderful debut by a writer with razor-sharp insights to the human condition. Justin Herrmann is a voice I hope to hear more from, and soon. Excellent collection. — Jo-Ann Mapson

Take it all in all, I do not believe anybody on Earth has it worse than an Emperor penguin. — Apsley Cherry-Garrard

By transporting Asian species to North America, and North American species to Australia, and Australian species to Africa, and European species to Antarctica, we are, in effect, reassembling the world into one enormous supercontinent - what biologists sometimes refer to as the New Pangaea. — Elizabeth Kolbert

I have a number of places on my wish list, including Antarctica, the Norwegian fjords, and the Amazon. I have a passion for wilderness, and Siberia is on my list - however, that may be a bridge too far. — Robert Powell

Meteorite hunting is not for wimps. The best places to look are also the coldest and windiest. You need very old ice, and you need wind, lots of it, strong and unrelenting. Antarctica fits the bill. — Mary Roach

As far as I know, no vampires live in Antarctica."
"I'd have thought the long winter nights would be just the thing for you guys," I said.
"Perhaps. But the food supply is a bit wanting. — Carrie Vaughn

'Red Knot' is a film that I shot in Antarctica almost three years ago on a boat. It was a film that was improvised and it had very interesting circumstances while making the film, obviously. We were on a small boat bobbing around in Antarctica. It was a really remarkable experience. — Olivia Thirlby

Up steps, three, six, nine, twelve! Slap! Their palms hit the library door.
* * *
They opened the door and stepped in.
They stopped.
The library deeps lay waiting for them.
Out in the world, not much happened. But here in the special night, a land bricked with paper and leather, anything might happen, always did. Listen! and you heard ten thousand people screaming so high only dogs feathered their ears. A million folk ran toting cannons, sharpening guillotines; Chinese, four abreast marched on forever. Invisible, silent, yes, but Jim and Will had the gift of ears and noses as well as the gift of tongues. This was a factory of spices from far countries. Here alien deserts slumbered. Up front was the desk where the nice old lady, Miss Watriss, purple-stamped your books, but down off away were Tibet and Antarctica, the Congo. There went Miss Wills, the other librarian, through Outer Mongolia, calmly toting fragments of Peiping and Yokohama and the Celebes. — Ray Bradbury

A Poem
By Max
White is the color of little bunnies with pink noses.
White is the color of fluffy clouds fluffing their way across the sky.
White is the color of angel's wings and Angel's wings.
White is the color of brand-new ankle socks fresh out of the bag.
White is the color of crisp sheets in schmancy hotels.
White is the color of every last freaking, gol-danged thing you see for endless miles and miles if you happen to be in Antarctica trying to save the world, which now you aren't so sure you can do because you feel like if you see any more whiteness-Wonder Bread, someone's underwear, teeth-you will completely and totally lose your ever-lovin' mind and wind up pushing a grocery cart full of empty cans around New York City, muttering to yourself.
That was my first poem ever.
Okay, so it's not Shakespeare, but I liked it. — James Patterson

No sunrises that stop you dead with their unspeakable beuaty, either, he thought. No whales breaching only yards away from the ship, showering your awestruck self with a cold ocean rain. No songs and whiskey belowdecks at night while the wind plucks at the ship's rigging and the ice beats against her hull. — Jennifer Donnelly

If he'd been any other man and i'd been any other girl, I'd have called the narrowing of his heavy-lidded dark eyes lust. But he was Barrons and I was Mac, and a blossoming of lust was about as likely as orchids blooming in Antarctica — Karen Marie Moning

Playing the game means treating your dogs like gentlemen, and your gentlemen like dogs. — Ted Tally

The thing that is most beautiful about Antarctica for me is the light. It's like no other light on Earth, because the air is so free of impurities. You get drugged by it, like when you listen to one of your favorite songs. The light there is a mood-enhancing substance. — Jon Krakauer

In all the world there is no desolation more complete than the polar night. It is a return to the Ice Age - no warmth, no life, no movement. Only those who have experienced it can fully appreciate what it means to be without the sun day after day and week after week. Few men unaccustomed to it can fight off its effects altogether, and it has driven some men mad. — Alfred Lansing

In Antarctica you get to know people so well that in comparison you do not seem to know the people in civilization at all. — Apsley Cherry-Garrard

If I was a cake, I would be incomplete unless I was a yellow sponge from Asia; frosted with brown chocolate from Americas; classy and elegant decorated with fresh white cream from Europe, and satin black fondant from Africa. I would be edible only if cooled in the Antarctica and served at a beach in Australia. No race in this world is superior to another but rather deficient without the other. Tolerance is not love but a chance to abolish any opportunity for hatred. Let's keep baking in a joyful and tolerant manner. — Gloria D. Gonsalves

The albatross hit the top and canted her soft belly to the storm, and made a screaming banked peel-out downwind and over the other side. I don't know if anyone else on the ship saw her. To me, she was a visitation. Not harbinger or annunciation, but a simple reminder of a wold that worked, that was at home with itself and friends with storm. — Peter Heller

I write about all manner of things: a guy fighting aliens in the New York State Library, Antarctica, Inca civilization in Peru, the Great Pyramid at Giza, and people often ask me, where do I get these ideas from? They come from reading widely, watching a lot of documentaries, and increasingly ,as I was able to, travelling around the world. — Matthew Reilly

Scientists say that Texas and Antarctica were connected at one time. In fact, early Mexicans used to go through Texas to try to sneak into Antarctica. — Jay Leno

I dream of diving in two places where I have not been yet. One is Antarctica, because of its crystal clear waters and amazing fauna, in addition to the ice cathedrals. The other is the Arctic, where I'd like to see the northernmost kelp forests. — Enric Sala

We were quiet for a while, and then I said, "I think my favorite part of Antarctica is just looking out." You know why?" Dad asked. "When your eyes are softly focused on the horizon for sustained periods, your brain releases endorphins. It's the same as a runner's high. — Maria Semple