Best Sailors Quotes & Sayings

I like to sail. My son Caden and I are avid sailors. — Doug Davidson

Like all professional sailors, Holden had sometimes ended long flights by drinking himself into a stupor. More than once he'd wandered into a brothel and left only when they threw him out with an emptied account, a sore groin, and a prostate as dry as the Sahara desert. So when Amos staggered into his room after three days on station, Holden knew exactly what the big mechanic felt like. — James S.A. Corey

The singing wasn't the hopscotch-jumprope-happy kind. This was the kind of singing that, if you tracked it to its source, you might find a little girl in a moldy old burial dress, her skin pitted & green, with lots of coffin splinters & dirt between her teeth ...
... like a mermaid luring idiot sailors ... Winny wasn't a sailor, & he wasn't old enough to get all sexed up by some hot siren. — Dean Koontz

Politicians who complain about the media are like sailors who complain about the sea. — Enoch Powell

To be a good storyteller one must be gloriously alive. It is not possible to kindle fresh fires from burned-out embers. I have noticed that the best of the traditional storytellers whom I have heard have been those who live close to the heart of things-to the earth, the sea, wind and weather. They have been those who knew solitude, silence. They have been given unbroken time in which to feel deeply, to reach constantly for understanding. They have come to know the power of the spoken word. These storytellers have been sailors and peasants, wanderers and fisherman. — Ruth Sawyer

Nobody else is wearing anything even remotely like it.'
Magnus cast a disparaging look around at all the fashion-challenged sailors. 'I feel sorry for them, of course, but I do not see why that observation should alter my current extremely stylish course of action. — Cassandra Clare

It is unacceptable to risk the lives of American soldiers and sailors merely to accommodate the sexual lifestyles of certain individuals. — Larry Craig

And now the minister prayed. A good, generous prayer it was, and went into details: it pleaded for the church, and the little children of the church; for the other churches of the village; for the village itself; for the county; for the State; for the State officers; for the United States; for the churches of the United States; for Congress; for the President; for the officers of the Government; for poor sailors, tossed by stormy seas; for the oppressed millions groaning under the heel of European monarchies and Oriental despotisms; for such as have the light and the good tidings, and yet have not eyes to see nor ears to hear withal; for the heathen in the far islands of the sea; and closed with a supplication that the words he was about to speak might find grace and favor, and be as seed sown in fertile ground, yielding in time a grateful harvest of good. Amen. — Mark Twain

It is mostly when we are very young that we take the greatest delight in the sad songs; those who have felt the real bitterness of sorrow are glad to bury it deeply away, and do not wish it wakened, as sailors' wives love a place best where they cannot hear the sound of the sea. — Angela Brazil

The first glance at the pillow showed me a repulsive sentinel perched upon each end of it
cockroaches as large as peach leaves
fellows with long, quivering antennae and fiery, malignant eyes. They were grating their teeth like tobacco worms, and appeared to be dissatisfied about something. I had often heard that these reptiles were in the habit of eating off sleeping sailors' toe nails down to the quick, and I would not get in the bunk any more. I lay down on the floor. But a rat came and bothered me, and shortly afterward a procession of cockroaches arrived and camped in my hair. In a few moments the rooster was crowing with uncommon spirit and a party of fleas were throwing double somersaults about my person in the wildest disorder, and taking a bite every time they stuck. I was beginning to feel really annoyed. I got up and put my clothes on and went on deck.
The above is not overdrawn; it is a truthful sketch of inter-island schooner life. — Mark Twain

'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' ends with the spaceship lands and Richard Dreyfuss' character best on, but a bunch of pilots and sailors from the 1940s get off. You kind of wanted to know what happened next. — Jonathan Nolan

If it weren't for this hyena, the sailors wouldn't have thrown me into the lifeboat and I would have stayed on the ship and I surely would have drowned; and if I had to share quarters with a wild animal, better the upfront ferocity of a dog than the power and stealth of a cat. — Yann Martel

Lying on stained, wretched sheets with a bleeding virgin
We could plan a murder
Or start a religion. — Jim Morrison

I am a Magyr. I could crush your skull with my hands and drink this rat town under the table afterwards. And if I wanted to kill myself a passel of sailors, I'd bloody well do it with cannon, saber, and a fist in the teeth, not by batting my damn eyelashes. You'd be wise to remember it, Maggie, my love, and if we see a mermaid on our jaunt across the high seas, the best thing for all of us would be to let Sheapshank here put an arrow through her giggling head. — Catherynne M Valente

Later, when his desires had been satisfied, he slept in an odorous whorehouse, snoring lustily next to an insomniac tart, and dreamed. He could dream in seven languages: Italian, Spanic, Arabic, Persian, Russian, English and Portughese. He had picked up languages the way most sailors picked up diseases; languages were his gonorrhea, his syphilis, his scurvy, his ague,his plague. As soon as he fell asleep half the world started babbling in his brain, telling wondrous travelers' tales. In this half-discovered world every day brought news of fresh enchantments. The visionary, revelatory dream-poetry of the quotidian had not yet been crushed by blinkered, prosy fact. Himself a teller of tales, he had been driven out of his door by stories of wonder, and by one in particular, a story which could make his fortune or else cost him his life. — Salman Rushdie

Navigation, you see, is not just a problem for sailors. Everyone must go adventuring sooner or later, yet finding one's way home is not easy. Just like the North Star and all its whirling, starry brethren, a person's idea of where 'home' is remains in perpetual motion, one's whole life long.
Home was more than a house, even if the house was very grand. — Maryrose Wood

I'm not studying the heroes who lead navies - and armies - and win wars. I'm studying ordinary people who you wouldn't expect to be heroic, but who, when there's a crisis, show extraordinary bravery and self-sacrifice. Like Jenna Geidel, who gave her life vaccinating people during the Pandemic. And the fishermen and retired boat owners and weekend sailors who rescued the British Army from Dunkirk. And Wells Crowther, the twenty-four-year-old equities trader who worked in the World Trade Center. When it was hit by terrorists, he could have gotten out, but instead he went back and saved ten people, and died. I'm going to observe six different sets of heroes in six different situations to try to determine what qualities they have in common. — Connie Willis

Lighthouse people are beacons that call all the sailors in ships back to land, beckoning them in toward the light. Lighthouse people are magnetic and luminescent, so much so that even when one sailor manages to row all the way to land and climbs up into the lighthouse, the rest of the sailors will stay out there on the water, waiting for their chance to come to shore. They will feel that it's always best to keep an eye on the lighthouse, even if they have to come and go due to other sailorly obligations. The lighthouse might act like it doesn't know it's so popular with the sailors, but it does. How could it not? Even if the lighthouse has a special sailor for the moment, its light is always on. It can't help it. — Katie Heaney

Gundar's smile broadened at the memory of that evening as he recalled how his rough-and-tumble sailors had stayed on their best manners, humbly asking their table companions to pass the meat, please, or requesting just a little more ale in their drinking mugs. These were men who were accustomed to cursing heartily, tearing legs off roast boar wih their bare hands and occasionally swilling ale traight from the keg. Their attempts at mingling with polite society would have made the basis of some great stories back in Skandia. — John Flanagan

Patricia saw the Arizona explode, sending dozens of sailors' bodies through the air. The 14-year-old helped terribly burned seamen as they crawled from the water onto her sloped lawn into the shelter of the basement of her house, despite Japanese planes flying overhead.[175] The house was built over an old gun emplacement, and the basement was affectionately known as the dungeon. — James F. Lee

It was on old joke among underfed, angry sailors that should mutiny fail, the weight of their bodies would not be enough to hang them. — Marcus Rediker

I actually got so drunk I wrapped myself around the toilet bowl of the Scollay Square Cafe and got pissed and puked on all night long by a thousand sailors and seamen and when I woke up in the morning and found myself all covered and caked and unspeakably dirty I just like a good old Boston man walked down to the Atlantic Avenue docks and jumped into the sea. — Jack Kerouac

Chicago at the time owned a lake the size of a sea, several advertising firms, at least six tribes of marauding criminals, healthy herds of sailors grazing free, the first Ferris wheel in all the world, and more wind than it could care for. — Catherynne M Valente

All Marines, sailors and civilian Marines, regardless of sexual orientation, are Marines first. Every Marine is a valued member of our war-fighting team. — James F. Amos

I took a voyage once
it is many years ago, now
to Amsterdam, and the owner, not my good cousin here, but another, took a fancy to go with me; and his wife must needs accompany him, and verily, before that voyage was over, I wished I was dead. I was no longer captain of the ship. My owner was my captain, and his wife was his. We were forever putting into port for fresh bread and meat, milk and eggs, for she could eat none other. If the wind got up but ever so little, we had to run into shelter and anchor until the sea was smooth. The manners of the sailors shocked her. She would scream at night when a rat ran across her, and would lose her appetite if a living creature, of which, as usual, the ship was full, fell from a beam onto her platter. I was tempted, more than once, to run the ship on to a rock and make an end of us all. — G.A. Henty

Sometimes what we seek to gain through "winning" a conflict is not worth what we're refusing to sacrifice. And true compromise often involves sacrifice: As on the path between Scylla and Charybdis, the monsters of Greek mythology who lie on either side of a narrow strait to devour sailors and ships, either way you go there will be losses. Through life experience we gradually learn to differentiate between the ideals, values and principles which can, and those which cannot, be compromised. — Alexandra Katehakis

Because desperate people cling to hope like sailors to their wreaks. — Kate Morton

Huzzah! Free Trade and Sailors' Rights! But instead American ships are captured and sailors impressed by the thousands into the British Navy, becoming slaves to the lash, while the United States has virtually no navy to back them up. Baltimore native, Nathan Jeffries, son of an American hero, Captain William Jeffries, and his Quaker wife, Amy, is haunted by the memories of his fiancee, his best friend, his enemy's woman and his betrayal. Chesapeake Bay is no refuge aboard his father's brig Bucephalus;facing his worst fears, he is chased and captured by armed privateer schooner Scourge. In a violent world at war, Nathan must break his most solemn promise to his mother. For Nathan and the young United States, 1812 would severely challenge rights of passage. — Bert J. Hubinger

It's a sailors' tradition, miss." O'Shea approached, his thick brogue cutting through Sophia's confusion. "The Sea King himself comes aboard to have a bit of sport with those crossing the Tropic for the first time, like the new boy there." He nodded toward Davy, who stood to the side, looking every bit as confused as Sophia but unwilling to own to it.
Quinn crossed his massive forearms over his chest, stacking them like logs. "And Triton always collects his tax, of course."
"His tax?" Sophia asked.
O'Shea gave her a sly look. "Best be ready with a coin or two, Miss Turner. If you can't pay his tax, old Triton just might sweep ye down to the depths with him and keep ye there forever."
Quinn chuckled, shooting the Irishman a knowing look. "Knowing old Triton, it wouldn't be surprising if he did just that."
O'Shea winked at the crewman. "Could hardly blame him. — Tessa Dare

My point is that the admirable men of those times, the Cochranes, Byrons, Falconers, Seymours, Boscawens and the many less famous sailors from whom I have in some degree compounded my characters, are best celebrated in their own splendid actions rather than in imaginary contests; that authenticity is a jewel; and that the echo of their words has an abiding value. — Patrick O'Brian

We are like sailors who have to rebuild their ship on the open sea, without ever being able to dismantle it in dry-dock and reconstruct it from the best components. — Otto Neurath

To say Congress is spending like drunken sailors is an insult to drunken sailors. — Ronald Reagan

I God, a very Gomorry on wheels! You lead the most exciting life I know of, and complain more about it than any two well-off bastards in the running. I am glad to hear you sound like your old self, though I never hearn of no Jonathan with two Davids.
Top of this letter is an allusion to that wonderful novel, The SotWeed Factor, in which Ebenezer Cooke, "poet and virgin," is about to be raped by a buncher sailors (they have him tied across a table in the fo'c'sle; he is saved by a raiding party of pirates, one of whom strides into the scene and says, "I God, this here ship's a very floatin' Gomorry!"
Have come down with the flu since inditing the above. [ ... ]. The mail yestiddy brought a letter from Sam Beckett! asked to see Sappho and Arky. I sag with fatigue. Blessings.
Guy — Guy Davenport

The Annual Register for 1763 tabulated the casualty list for British sailors in the Seven Years' War with France. Out of 184,899 men raised or rounded up for the war, 133, 708 died from disease, primarily scurvy, while only 1,512 were killed in action. — Stephen R. Brown

Because of Columbus's exaggerated report and promises, his second expedition was given seventeen ships and more than twelve hundred men. The aim was clear: slaves and gold. They went from island to island in the Caribbean, taking Indians as captives. But as word spread of the Europeans' intent they found more and more empty villages. On Haiti, they found that the sailors left behind at Fort Navidad had been killed in a battle with the Indians, after they had roamed the island in gangs looking for gold, taking women and children as slaves for sex and labor. — Howard Zinn

Love's the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite "The boy stood on
the burning deck." Love's the son
stood stammering elocution
while the poor ship in flames went down.

Love's the obstinate boy, the ship,
even the swimming sailors, who
would like a schoolroom platform, too,
or an excuse to stay
on deck. And love's the burning boy. — Elizabeth Bishop

An event is not any more intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible because of the pace at which it moves. For a man who does not believe in a miracle, a slow miracle would be just as incredible as a swift one. The Greek witch may have turned sailors to swine with a stroke of the wand. But to see a naval gentleman of our acquaintance looking a little more like a pig every day, till he ended with four trotters and a curly tail, would not be any more soothing. It might be rather more creepy and uncanny. — G.K. Chesterton

If you have a story that seems worth telling, and you think you can tell it worthily, then the thing for you to do is to tell it, regardless of whether it has to do with sex, sailors or mounted policemen. — Dashiell Hammett

For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. — Herman Melville

Hey, come on!" Kail pushed into the hallway and saw an ascetic-looking man whose lapitect robes had some little stars on the collar. "We're trying to work, here! Do I go down to where your mother works and push the sailors out of her bed? — Patrick Weekes

We must be careful what we read, and not, like the sailors of Ulysses, take bags of wind for sacks of treasure. — John Lubbock

I used to own an island in the Seychelles and had a big boat there and one day I came across some Somali pirates who were passing by on their way to re-provision their boat. They didn't even acknowledge me - which is unheard of among sailors - and it was like looking into the eyes of a black mamba. — Wilbur Smith

'Morning Star' is the light that many sailors would use to guide them. But it's also referenced twice in the Bible - once for Lucifer and once for Jesus. — Pierce Brown

I just couldn't stand it any more back in Bes Pelargic,' Twoflower went on blithely, 'sitting at a desk all day, just adding up columns of figures, just a pension to look forward to at the end of it ... where's the romance in that? Twoflower, I thought, it's now or never. You don't just have to listen to stories. You can go there. Now's the time to stop hanging around the docks listening to sailors' tales. — Terry Pratchett

There isn't anything about me that is analogous to the Bermuda Triangle's "rogue wave" phenomenon (at least I hope there isn't). I don't capsize sailors, much less entire ships. I keep myself to myself, you know? In fact, I think that's probably what the Bermuda Triangle is up to. It doesn't mean to do any harm, and it's actually pretty nice once you get to know it. It's just that Bermuda doesn't know how to handle itself when somebody sails into its territory, because that hardly ever happens. It hasn't had much chance to practice, and it's used to things going a certain way. So if a sailor DOES come around, it gets a little nervous, freaks the fuck out, and creates hurricane-like devastation in every direction around it. And then it gets embarrassed and sad and calls its friends. — Katie Heaney

They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row. — Bob Dylan

Tell that to the marines - the sailors won't believe it. — Walter Scott

In the Arctic I met some Russian sailors on a submarine and they chorused, "Gordon's alive!" — Brian Blessed

If a ship's coming in from a port known to have plague of some kind, the damned Hollanders make the sailors swim ashore naked. — Diana Gabaldon

A Marine should be sworn to the patient endurance of hardships, like the ancient knights; and it is not the least of these necessary hardships to have to serve with sailors. — Bernard Law Montgomery