Being An Island Quotes & Sayings

I thought of a high school report I did on the Belgian artist Rene Magritte and a quote I once read from him, something about his favorite walk being the one he took around his own bedroom. He said that he never understood the need for people to travel because all the poetry and perspective you're ever going to get you already posses. Anais Nin had the same idea. We see the world as we are. So if it's the same brain we bring with us every time we open our eyes, what's the difference if we're looking at an island cove or a pocket watch? — Sloane Crosley

You can't imagine fame. You can only ever see it from an outsider and comment on it with the rueful wisdom of a non participant. When it happens to you, it doesn't matter what age or how, it is a very steep learning curve. The imprtanot thing to realize in all of it is that life is short, to protect the ones you love, and not expose yourself to too much abuse or narcissistic reflection gazing and move on. If fame affords me the type of ability to do the kind of work I'm being offered, who am I to complain about the downsides. It's all relative. And this are obviously very high class problems. The way privacy becomes an every shrinking island is inevitable but also manageable and it doesn't necessary have to get that way ... — Benedict Cumberbatch

I take a nap after supper and dream of the U.S. Navy, a ship anchored near a war scene, at an island, but everything is drowsy as two sailors go up the trail with fishing poles and a dog between them to go make love quietly in the hills: the captain and everybody know they're queer and rather than being infuriated however they're all drowsily enchanted by such gentle love ... (p. 119) — Jack Kerouac

A human being without the proper empathy or feeling is the same as an android built so as to lack it, either by design or mistake. We mean, basically, someone who does not care about the fate which his fellow living creatures fall victim to; he stands detached, a spectator, acting out by his indifference John Donne's theorem that 'No man is an island,' but giving that theorem a twist: that which is a mental and a moral island is not a man. — Philip K. Dick

Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose."
"Wealthy men can't live in an island that is encircled by poverty. We all breathe the same air. We must give a chance to everyone, at least a basic chance."
"Money is a strange business. People who haven't got it aim it strongly. People who have are full of troubles. — Ayrton Senna

No man, proclaimed Donne, is an Island, and he was wrong. If we were not islands, we would be lost, drowned in each other's tragedies. We are insulated (a word that means, literally, remember, made into an island) from the tragedy of others, by our island nature, and by the repetitive shape and form of the stories. The shape does not change: there was a human being who was born, lived, and then, by some means or another, died. There. You may fill in the details from your own experience. As unoriginal as any other tale, as unique as any other life. Lives are snowflakes - forming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'd mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection), but still unique. — Neil Gaiman

I met my husband, Jacob, in medical school. We married and went to live in Hawaii where his family lived. It was very beautiful, but I wasn't used to being on an island and needed wide open spaces. Eventually we moved to Maine, New England. — Tess Gerritsen

I majored in illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design, although I never had any intention of being an illustrator and didn't take any classes in illustration there. It was just that the illustration degree had no requirements. — Brian Selznick

Perhaps they never left the island when construction was complete," Otto replied.
Wing raised an eyebrow. "A true job for life."
"Or a life for a job," Otto countered. He wouldn't be at all surprised, given the emphasis on total secrecy, if H.I.V.E. offered an "aggressive" retirement package for lower-level employees. Here, being fired was probably a term that was taken a little too literally. — Mark Walden

In Tasmania, an island the size of Ireland whose primeval forests astonished 19th-century Europeans, an incomprehensible ecological tragedy is being played out. — Richard Flanagan

To be on an island inhabited by artificial ghosts was the most unbearable of nightmares,- to be in love with one of those images was worse than being in love with a ghost (perhaps we always want the person we love to have the existenceof a ghost). — Adolfo Bioy Casares

For me, 'Lamb' started out as a further exploration of the phenomenon of faith and the responsibility of a messiah that I touched on in 'Coyote Blue' and 'Island of the Sequined Love Nun,' but it ended up being an exploration of the true meaning of sacrifice, loyalty, and friendship. — Christopher Moore

Before the scientific revolution, [man] did not feel himself isolated by his skin from the world outside to quite the same extent that we do. He was integrated, or mortised into it, each different part of him being united to a different part of it by some invisible thread. In his relation to his environment, the man of the middle ages was rather less like an island, rather more like an embryo. — Owen Barfield

But even if we were to disappear, people would still be divided into people and Others. No matter how those Others were different.
People can't get by without Others. Put two people on an uninhabited island, and you'll have a human being and an Other. And the difference is that an Other is always tormented by his differentness. It's easier for people. They know they're people, and that's what they ought to be. And they all have no choice but to be that way. All of them, forever. — Sergei Lukyanenko

We need others for our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Without others we are nothing. Our sense that we are an island, an independent, self-sufficient individual, bears no relation to reality. It is closer to the truth to picture ourself as a cell in the vast body of life, distinct yet intimately bound up with all living beings. We cannot exist without others, and they in turn are affected by everything we do. The idea that it is possible to secure our own welfare while neglecting the welfare of others, or even at the expense of others, is completely unrealistic. — Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

One would think he was going to have his throat cut," said the Controller, as the door closed. "Whereas, if he had the smallest sense, he'd understand that his punishment is really a reward. He's being sent to an island. That's to say, he's being sent to a place where he'll meet the most interesting set of men and women to be found anywhere in the world. All the people who, for one reason or another, have got too self-consciously individual to fit into community-life. All the people who aren't satisfied with orthodoxy, who've got independent ideas of their own. Every one, in a word, who's any one. I almost envy you, Mr. Watson. — Aldous Huxley

I was in juvenile detention center, and I was in Rikers Island. And there was an anthology written by the inmates called 'The Pen,' and I - you know, I had a crush on a girl, and she left me when I was incarcerated. And I found this poem in this anthology that talked about having your heart broken and being incarcerated. — Lemon Andersen

I felt I was in the loneliest place in the world, and I was apprehensive. Nothing could be heard except the occasional crash of an unknown creature in the forest, and, once in awhile, a deep thrumming similar to the lowest barely audible sound of a string bass. I was standing alone in 1972 in a semi-ruined lighthouse that my wife, fifteen-year-old daughter, and I had just purchased. The lighthouse was located atop a 200-foot cliff on an island a dozen miles from the Lake Superior shoreline. I was separated from the nearest human being by an unknown but surely great distance, and had hiked several hours through the forest to reach the place, following the path of an old road that once led to the lighthouse but was now no longer passable with a vehicle. The low rumble I occasionally heard, straddling the lowest limit of my auditory range, was caused by an occasional large wave entering a cavern below the lighthouse and resonating in the stony echo chamber. — Loren Graham

I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast — Ronald Reagan

So I couldn't just pack my blue IKEA sack and go - I had to do the right thing. I had to preserve what was left of the goodness in my soul. But for the record, this was exactly why I never wanted to have friends. So much for being an island. Thanks — Camille Perri

There was an old joke about being left on a deserted island with an editor. You are starving. All you have left is a glass of orange juice. Days pass. You are near death. You are about to drink the juice when the editor grabs the glass from your hand and pees into it. You look at him, stunned . "There," the editor says, handing you the glass. "It just needed a little tweaking. — Harlan Coben

So you should be grateful about most everything, because, being an American, you live a very privileged life. There's just a tiny amount of room for complaining, because there are a few legitimate things worth complaining about. Like, let's say you watched a show about people who crashed on an island, and it was full of interesting mysteries, and you kept watching for six seasons, hoping to find answers to all the mysteries - but then in the finale they totally didn't answer anything and acted like it was the characters and their resolutions I was supposed to care about - like Jack's constant whining should have been my focus rather than the smoke monster or the mysterious hatch. That's awful. That's worth complaining about . . . even years later. — Frank J. Fleming

There was the joke about Switzerland being an island surrounded by land. This was never true. — Samuel Schmid

I advise everyone to find an island in this life. Find a place where this culture can't take energy away from you, sap your will and originality. Since anything physical can be mental, that island can be your home. Turn off the electromagnetic waves being forced upon you, the countless invisible forces coming at you all the time. — RZA

What is the good of being an island, if you are not a volcanic island? — Wyndham Lewis

When people are kids their parents teach them all sorts of stuff, some of it true and useful, some of it absurd hogwash (example of former: don't crap your pants; example of latter: Columbus discovered America). This is why puberty happens. The purpose of puberty is to shoot an innocent and gullible child full of nasty glandular secretions that manifest in the mind as confusion, in the innards as horniness, upon the skin as pimples, and on the tongue as cocksure venomous disbelief in every piece of information, true or false, gleaned from one's parents since infancy. The net result is a few years of familial hell culminating in the child's exodus from the parental nest, sooner or later followed by a peace treaty and the emergence of the postpubescent as an autonomous, free-thinking human being who knows that Columbus only trespassed on an island inhabited by our lost and distant Indian relatives, but who also knows not to crap his pants. — David James Duncan

But every tomorrow has led to today - to us being alone, hungry, and cold on an unknown island somewhere in the South Pacific. — Jennifer Arnett

There was no response. Soon afterward, a skiff flying the Spanish flag approached the Charleston. Two Spanish officers came aboard and apologized for not having returned the American "salute" because they had no gunpowder left in their arsenal. It turned out that they had not been resupplied for months and did not know the United States and Spain were at war. The next morning an American lieutenant went ashore. At 10:15 he handed the Spanish commandant a message demanding surrender of the island within thirty minutes. The commandant retired to his quarters. Twenty-nine minutes later he emerged with a reply. "Being without defenses of any kind and without any means for meeting the present situation," he had written, "I am under the sad necessity of being unable to resist such superior forces and regretfully accede to your demands. — Stephen Kinzer

She kissed her like she'd been stranded on an island, notching each stranded day onto a fallen coconut, slowly losing her mind. She filled Michelle like weather, worked her mouth like a cherry stem being tongued into a knot. — Michelle Tea

I enjoy a four-seasonal climate and wide-open spaces, so being on an island 2,500 miles into the South Pacific made me feel a little claustrophobic. — Matthew Fox

I was born in the island of Ireland. I have Irish traits in me - we don't all have the traits of what came from Scotland, there is the celtic factor ... and I am an Irishman because you cannot be an Ulsterman without being an Irishman — Ian Paisley

My life, my life, my very old one
My first badly healed desire,
My first crippled love,
You had to return.
It was necessary to know
What is best in our lives,
When two bodies play at happiness,
Unite, reborn without end.
Entered into complete dependency,
I know the trembling of being,
The hesitation to disappear,
Sunlight upon the forest's edge
And love, where all is easy,
Where all is given in the instant;
There exists in the midst of time
The possibility of an island. — Michel Houellebecq

And if his youth was obvious, the Glorious Cause was to a large degree a young man's cause. The commander in chief of the army, George Washington, was himself only forty-three. John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress, was thirty-nine, John Adams, forty, Thomas Jefferson, thirty-two, younger even than the young Rhode Island general. In such times many were being cast in roles seemingly beyond their experience or capacities, and Washington had quickly judged Nathanael Greene to be "an object of confidence. — David McCullough

It was like she'd been deserted on an island, hadn't seen another human being in ten years and was beside herself with joy that she finally had more than a coconut to talk to. — Kristen Ashley

The first one, obviously, was walking into my office at eight o'clock in the morning on Wednesday, and being told there was a telephone call saying that there was an incident at Three Mile Island, and that it had shut down and that beyond that we didn't know. — William Scranton

Imagine that every man's mind is an island, surrounded by ocean. Each seems isolated, yet in reality all are linked by the bedrock from which they spring. If the ocean were to vanish, that would be the end of the islands. They would all be part of one continent, but the individuality would have gone — Arthur C. Clarke

If you're reading this book, you're probably already interested in being green, and almost certainly already a parent (or about to become one), so I won't trouble too much with the semantics of what 'being green' means, but just say that doing the 'green' thing here means being as environmentally friendly as possible, while considering your child's everyday personal health as well, and taking into account social-justice issues to some degree, because no-one is an island and humans and animals are part of the environment too. Even if you're new to this, it's entirely
possible, with a little helping hand, to form new, green lifestyle habits, so long as you're prepared to take baby steps to begin with (and pardon the pun). — Zion Lights

They turned and found themselves facing a bullet head on an ICBM body lumpily stuffed into a black shirt and a brown suit. It was as though King Kong were making a break for it, hoping to smuggle himself back to his island disguised as a human being. — Donald E. Westlake

The same thing happened to me that, according to legend, happened to Parmeniscus, who in the Trophonean cave lost the ability to laugh but acquired it again on the island of Delos upon seeing a shapeless block that was said to be the image of the goddess Leto. When I was very young, I forgot in the Trophonean cave how to laugh; when I became an adult, when I opened my eyes and saw actuality, then I started to laugh and have never stopped laughing since that time. I saw that the meaning of life was to make a living, its goal to be- come a councilor, that the rich delight oflove was to acquire a well-to-do girl, that the blessedness of friendship was to help each other in financial difficulties, that wisdom was whatever the majority assumed it to be, that enthusiasm was to give a speech, that courage was to risk being fined ten dollars, that cordiality was to say "May it do you good" after a meal, that piety was to go to communion once a year. This I saw, and I laughed. — Soren Kierkegaard

If Chinese exceptionalism represented the claims of a universal empire, Japanese exceptionalism sprang from the insecurities of an island nation borrowing heavily from its neighbor, but fearful of being dominated by it. — Henry Kissinger

There was a quote he could not quite remember, something about the past being an island surrounded by time. He had missed the last boat to the island. — Joanne Harris

I envisaged a woman of the late nineteenth century marrying into this milieu, finding it unendurable and fleeing back with her child to the more ordinary hazards of London: of that child, given at her christening the ancient Roman name for the island, Sarnia, but reared in ignorance of her paternal background, discovering, after her mother's death, that she was an heiress, and being bidden back to claim her patrimony. Skulduggery followed naturally.
(On the writing of SARNIA) — Hilary Ford

Terry Pratchett lives in England, an island off the coast of France, where he spends his time writing Discworld novels in accordance with the Very String Anthropic Principle, which holds that the entire Purpose of the Universe is to make possible a being that will live in England, an island off the coast of France, and spend his time writing Discworld novels. Which is exactly what he does. Which proves the whole business true. Any questions? — Terry Pratchett

No, thanks. I'm busy being an island of sanity in a sea of utter madness. — Maggie Stiefvater

Being with him made her feel as though her soul had escaped from the narrow confines of her island country into the vast, extravagant spaces of his. He made her feel as though the world belonged to them- as though it lay before them like an opened frog on a dissecting table, begging to be examined. — Arundhati Roy

Great Britain, for instance, is too big and too diverse to be home to a small-island civilization, but in modern times the English - though not, I think, other peoples of the island - have cultivated what might be called a small-island mentality: all their most tiresome history books stress, sometimes in their opening words, that their history is a function of their insularity. They still write and read histories with such titles as Our Island Story and The Offshore Islanders.4The conviction that their island "arose from the azure main" and is like a gem "set in the silver sea" resounds in national songs and scraps of verse which they hear repeatedly. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the English invested heavily in naval security. They created the cult of the "English eccentric" - which is a way of idealizing the outcome of isolation. They have projected an image as "a singular race, one which prides itself on being a little mad. — Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

Sometimes I feel you are much too independent. So what if you are depending on other people? No man or woman is an island. — Preeti Shenoy