Drowning Others Quotes & Sayings

I can't speak. I have no voice. I just stare at his dark blue yes. It feels as though I let the lifeboat sail away. I'm drowning in a sea of pain. He reached out, but I can't take his hand. — H.M. Ward

Last night I had a nightmare. That me and someone I cared a lot about were playing a game in a pool. We'd take turns submerging ourselves under the water while the other person kept time.
At one point it felt like the other person might be drowning, so I jumped in to pull her up. She smiled and laughed and pushed me away. Then she turned blue and died. I could not resuciate her.
I woke up at 3, sweating, in shock and pain. Frightened. But then I realized it was only a dream. But then I realized it was just like real life ...
Sometimes people we care about play risky games and then don't want our help. There is nothing we can do for them, no matter how much we care ... — Jose N. Harris

Our behavior is different. How often have you seen a headline like this?
TWO DIE ATTEMPTING RESCUE OF DROWNING CHILD. If a man gets lost in the mountains, hundreds will search and often two or three searchers are killed. But the next time somebody gets lost just as many volunteers turn out.
Poor arithmetic, but very human. It runs through all our folklore, all human religions, all our literature
a racial conviction that when one human needs rescue, others should not count the price. — Robert A. Heinlein

When she was eighteen years old she had almost drowned in the Kennebec River, not because of the pummeling current, but because she couldn't come up with a casual phrase with which to call for rescue. "Help!" was such a cliche. By the time she was willing to scream, she had no breath left, and it was just blind luck that somebody saw her gasping and floundering and pulled her to shore. "Why didn't you say something?" they wanted to know, and she said, "I'm not a screamer." "Jesus," said one of them, "couldn't you have made an exception this one time?" "Apparently not," she said. — Jincy Willett

Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic. — Anais Nin

I can't breathe," she said. "I feel like I'm drowning in a gray sea, like they're flooding the whole city, washing away our past and people, dashing everything from the face of the earth." Jammed — Diane Ackerman

Anxiety is love's greatest killer, because it is like the stranglehold of the drowning. — Anais Nin

Promises. I was drowning in promises. — Richelle Mead

They thought they were helping me ...
but I didn't need help.
They thought they were fixing me ...
but I wasn't broken.
They thought they were watering me ...
but they were drowning me. — Steve Maraboli

Believe that you are someone worth saving. — Slade Combs

SINK OR SWIM ALERT
Folks with low self-esteem will push you under to save their drowning egos
Kamil Ali — Kamil Ali

What I like best about underwater photography is giving a visual voice to the invisible. What I like least is the prospect of drowning. — David Doubilet

I've lined my throat
with the river bottom's best
silt,

allowed my fingers to shrivel
and be taken for crawfish.

I've laced my eyelashes with algae.

I blink emerald.
I blink sea glass green.

I am whatever gleams
just under the surface.

Scoop at my sparkle. I'll give you nothing
but disturbed reflection.

Bring your ear to the water
and I'll sing you

down into my arms.

Let me show you how

to make your lungs
a home for minnows, how

to let them flicker

like silver

in and out of your mouth
like last words,

like air. — Saeed Jones

I intend to take your fucking denial. If I have to keep you tied all fucking day and night. I'm going to strip you down. Until you're drowning in pain and betrayal, until there is nothing but the blood in your past, and me. Saving you. — Lucian Bane

Figure two-, three-hundred-kilometer-an-hour winds, lightning, torrential rains. You're far enough inland to avoid the three-kilometer-high tsunami." "Basic wrath of God package, minus drowning, — James S.A. Corey

If you are helping someone who is drowning, make they don't pull you under water. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Race is the great taboo in our society. We are afraid to talk about it. White folks fear their unspoken views will be deemed racist. People of color are filled with sorrow and rage at unrighted wrongs. Drowning in silence, we are brothers and sisters drowning each other. Once we decide to transform ourselves from fearful caterpillars into courageous butterflies, we will be able to bridge the racial gulf and move forward together towards a bright and colorful future. — Eva Paterson

We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge. — John Naisbitt

Most inspirational writers were born as driftwood and will say they have been beaten against every shoreline during their life. We understand storms. We understand drowning. We understand being devalued. We understand being stranded alone on a beach. God made us this way so we would know where every lighthouse can be found and tell others how to find them. We were never meant to stand on the beach with you because every rescue we do rescues ourselves. We always go back to the sea because that is where driftwood belongs
forever searching for answers to our endless questions and sharing what we learned ... (2012, Writer's Conference) — Shannon L. Alder

All my favorite establishments were either overly crowded or pathetically empty. People either sipped fine vintages in celebration or gulped intoxicants of who cares what kind, drowning themselves in a lack of moderation, raising a glass to lower inhibitions, imbibing spirits to raise their own. — Monique Truong

Even the laziest person will fight for oxygen when drowning. — J.R. Rim

THE GREATEST GIFT One of the greatest gifts we can offer people is to embody nonattachment and nonfear. This is a true teaching, more precious than money or material resources. Many of us are very afraid, and this fear distorts our lives and makes us unhappy. We cling to objects and to people like a drowning person clings to a floating log. Practicing to realize nondiscrimination, to see the interconnectedness and impermanence of all things, and to share this wisdom with others, we are giving the gift of nonfear. Everything is impermanent. This moment passes. That person walks away. Happiness is still possible. — Thich Nhat Hanh

You won't solve your problems by drowning others in them. — Richelle E. Goodrich

But in residency, something else was gradually unfolding. In the midst of this endless barrage of head injuries, I began to suspect that being so close to the fiery light of such moments only blinded me to their nature, like trying to learn astronomy by staring directly at the sun. I was not yet with patients in their pivotal moments, I was merely at those pivotal moments. I observed a lot of suffering; worse, I became inured to it. Drowning, even in blood, one adapts, learns to float, to swim, even to enjoy life, bonding with the nurses, doctors, and others who are clinging to the same raft, caught in the same tide. My — Paul Kalanithi

Falling in love with another man is like falling into a vast vat of yourself. For some men this is ultimately nourishing, for others ... it is drowning. — Perry Brass

In the last week I felt her withdrawing. What was once everywhere, an ocean I imagined myself to be drowning in, was now barely deep enough to bathe in. I saw her warmth draining away and I couldn't stop it. — Olivia Sudjic

If I was drowning you would part the sea
And risk your own life to rescue me ... — Jamie McGuire

If we can model the ability to embody nonfear and nonattachment, it is more precious than any money or material wealth. Fear spoils our lives and makes us miserable. We cling to objects and people, like a drowning person clings to any object that floats by. By practicing nonattachment and sharing this wisdom with others, we give the gift of nonfear. Everything is impermanent. This moment passes. The object of our craving walks away, but we can know happiness is always possible. Intoxicants — Thich Nhat Hanh

I realised I really didn't know what I was doing and I felt her trace drowning in the middle of the cars and the people, in the middle of the streets and far away, in the secrets she so jealously kept.
I felt it. We were ever so close, ever so far. — Emiliano Campuzano

It's like saying to a drowning man: What a pity, what a pity! If you had only let me teach you how to swim! Everybody wants to right the world, nobody wants help his neighbor. They want to make a man of you without taking your body into consideration. It's all cockeyed. — Henry Miller

For the first time in his life, he was receiving the priceless gift of a woman's unconditional love and acceptance. It contradicted all that he knew about love, all that he had taught others. And he found himself needing it like a drowning man needs air to breathe and solid ground under his feet. — Barbara Branden

If you are drowning in a sewer, your first concern might be that you are drowning, not how vile you smell. — Geraldine Brooks

...The world gets blessed every now and then with unique souls who though burdened by their invisible crosses, still have the extraordinary strength to forge ahead in life and give others a helping hand at the same time. Despite their tribulations, most of us think they are fine. Even when the weight of their crosses become unbearable, even when they proceed in a breathless manner, we still have a hard time understanding that they are drowning. In fact, we even condemn them for failing to sacrifice more... — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

If you can learn to endure pain, you can survive anything. Some people learn to embrace it- to love it. Some endure it through drowning it in sorrow, or by making themselves forget. Others turn it into anger. — Sarah J. Maas

It is the phenomenon somethings called "alienation from self." In its advanced stages, we no longer answer the telephone, because someone might want something; that we could say no without drowning in self-reproach is an idea alien to this game. Every encounter demands too much, tears the nerves, drains the will, and the specter of something as small as an unanswered letter arouses such disproportionate guilt that answering it becomes out of the question. To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home. — Joan Didion

Sometimes I felt as if we were all wading around in grief, reluctant to admit to others how far we were waving or drowning. — Jojo Moyes

Why do we focus on certain things at the expense of others? We will risk our lives to save a person from drowning, yet not make a donation that could save dozens of children from starvation. We install solar panels when their impact on CO2 emissions is minimal - and indeed may have a net negative effect if manufacturing and installation are taken into account - rather than contributing to more efficient infrastructure projects. — Graeme Simsion

Underwater, we're drowning victims, struggling over and under each others' bodies. But above, we bob with the tide,undercurrents pulling us just far enough apart ,so that we're drifting parallel but not together. — Craig Thompson

People who won't help others in trouble "because they got into trouble through their own fault" would probably not throw a lifeline to a drowning person until they learned whether that person fell in through his or her own fault or not. — Sydney J. Harris

Ya got cigarettes?" she asks. "Yes," I say,
"I got cigarettes." "Matches?" she asks.
"Enough to burn Rome." "Whiskey?"
"Enough whiskey for a Mississippi River
of pain." "You drunk?" "Not yet. — Charles Bukowski

Stop feeling useless and worthless. Stop drowning in regret. Stop listening to the persistent voice of your past failures. You were that child once, who Margo would have killed for. Fight for yourselves. You have a right to live, and to live well. You'll inherit flaws; you'll develop new ones. And that's okay. Wear them, own them, use them to survive. Don't kill others; don't kill yourselves. Be bold about your right to be loved. And most importantly, don't be ashamed of where you've come from, or the mistakes you've made. In blindness, love will exhume you. — Tarryn Fisher

One never dives into the water to save a drowning man more eagerly than when there are others present who dare not take the risk. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Kind words and tender affections will not save me from this lake of woe and misery, but they may be enough of a buoy to prevent my drowning. — Richelle E. Goodrich

One person standing on the Rock can throw a lifeline to others drowning in the sea. He — Francine Rivers

There's always a siren, singing you to shipwreck. Some of us may be more susceptible than others are, but there's always a siren. It may be with us all our lives, or it may be many years or decades before we find it or it finds us. But when it does find us, if we're lucky we're Odysseus tied up to the ship's mast, hearing the song with perfect clarity, but ferried to safety by a crew whose ears have been plugged with beeswax. If we're not at all lucky, we're another sort of sailor stepping off the deck to drown in the sea. — Caitlin R. Kiernan

WHO MAKES THESE CHANGES? Who makes these changes? I shoot an arrow right. It lands left. I ride after a deer and find myself chased by a hog. I plot to get what I want and end up in prison. I dig pits to trap others and fall in. I should be suspicious of what I want. DROWNING — Jalaluddin Rumi

The burning conviction that we have a holy duty toward others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. — Eric Hoffer

I feel like my blood a giant river swell up inside me and I'm drowning. My head all dark inside. Feel like giant river I never cross in front me now. Ms Rain say, You not writing Precious. I say I drownin' in river. She don't look me like I'm crazy but say, If you just sit there the river gonna rise up drown you! Writing could be the boat to carry you to the other side. — Sapphire.

I had spent the day
friendless, lonely and sad,
a stranger to myself.



After drowning the day
on the sea shore,
I walked back
to my empty house
on the deserted street.



The moment
I opened the door,
the book on my table
flipped its pages
and said:

"Friend,
Where were you
for so long? — Gulzar

And like a drowning woman who chooses the black sea instead of rescue, she did not take it. — Tess Gerritsen

Rose was drowning in pleasure like she'd never known, just from a kiss. Jack wasn't touching her any place but on the lips and yet she could feel it on every inch of her body. Long, sure strokes of his tongue made her ache for him to explore the rest of her with equal thoroughness. She needed to touch him, why wasn't she touching him? — Mary J. Williams

That was 1986. That year I felt myself to be drowning in the news reports of murder. I was aware that these murders very often did not land upon the intended targets but fell upon great-aunts, PTA mothers, overtime uncles, and joyful children - fell upon them random and relentless, like great sheets of rain. I knew this in theory but could not understand it as fact until the boy with the small eyes stood across from me holding my entire body in his small hands. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Although when there were too many people around- which there certainly were today- it was hard even to remember to say thank you: all those people were like drowning. — Robin McKinley

I am the love.
I am drowning in your love.
I am drunk with your love.
I am a dumb for your love.
I am crazy about your love.
I dream at night about love.
I know that you're my love,
but I forgot how to love
because I become the love. — Debasish Mridha

She was whispering into it in some language that sounded like butterflies drowning in honey. — Chris Cleave

I read used books because fingerprint-smudged and dog-eared pages are heavier on the eye. Because every book can belong to many lives. Books should be kept in public places and step out with passersby who'll onto them for a spell. Books should die like people, consumed by aches and pains, infected, drowning off a bridge together with the suicides, poked into a potbellied stove, torn apart by children to make paper boats. They should die of anything, in other words, except boredom, as private property condemned to a life sentence on a shelf. — Erri De Luca

Yet instead of drowning in the darkness that had threatened to suck her under, Brenna had said "fuck you" to the monster who'd hurt her, and she'd chosen to live. She'd not only wrenched back control of her own life, she'd taken on an Arrow and claimed him as her mate. — Nalini Singh

I leaned toward him and whispered, "I'm drowning. Save me." But when I tried to grasp his shoulder my hand passed through him.
"I'm over here," he said.
I said, "No wonder I can't touch you. You're dead too." Or perhaps I didn't say it. — Sarah Micklem

Sophie: "For the Create-A-Tale Competition, your story ended with Snow White eaten by vultures and Cinderella drowning her-self in a tub."
Agatha: "I thought it was a better ending. — Soman Chainani

I hated Sundays as a kid. From the moment I woke up, I could feel Monday looming, could feel another school week all piled up and ready to smother me. How was I supposed to enjoy a day of freedom while drowning in dread like that? It was impossible. A pit would form in my chest and gut - this indescribably emptiness that I knew should be filled with fun, but instead left me casting about for something to do.
Knowing I should be having fun was a huge part of the problem. knowing that this was a rare day off, a welcome reprieve, and here I was miserable and fighting against it. Maybe this was why Fridays at school were better than Sundays not in school. I was happier doing what I hated, knowing a Saturday was coming, than I was on a perfectly free Sunday with a Monday right around the corner. — Hugh Howey

She was floating in the midst of a black sea, in the darkest of nights, with no hope or care to see light again. She was a mere wave away from drowning in blackness. — Anam Iqbal

The poisonous world flows into my mouth like water into that of a drowning man — Franz Kafka

Two people making love, she once said, are like one drowned person resuscitating the other. — Anatole Broyard

L.A. burns, and so many other cities smolder, waiting for the hose that will flood gasoline over the coals, and we listen to politicians who fuel our hate and our narrow views and tell us it's simply a matter of getting back to basics while they sit in their beachfront properties and listen to the surf so they won't have to hear the screams of the drowning. — Dennis Lehane

Safety was one thing, but what he really wanted was to be electrified, to be wounded, to be cast into the wilderness, to be released, to be exalted, and most especially to be surrounded by the drowning noise and ebullience and casual presence of friends calling out his name, demanding his presence. — Carol Shields

You idiot!" She spat, flattening her ears. "What are you doing in my territory?"
"Drowning?" Replied Graystripe. — Erin Hunter

Tell her this
And more,
That the king of the seas
Weeps too, old, helpless man.
The bustling fates
Heap his hands with corpses
Until he stands like a child
With surplus of toys. — Stephen Crane

Asia discovered two remedies for the cruelty of man, art and religion. America discarded both and is drowning in hate and aggressivity. — Anais Nin

You ain't no Hepburn and I ain't no Fonda, but if you were drowning in Golden Ponda, mouth to mouth I'd resuscitate you. — Alice Cooper

You can't have intentions without consequences. The question is, who pays for the consequences? Saving fish from drowning. Same thing. Who's saved? Who's not? — Amy Tan

We do not abandon ship. I say, as corny as it may sound, through the strength and spirit and fire and dare and gamble of a few men in a few ways we can save the carcass of humanity from drowning. No light goes out until it goes out. Let's fight as men, not rats. Period. No further addition. — Charles Bukowski

He feels himself buried in those two infinities, the ocean and the sky, at one and the same time: the one is a tomb; the other is a shroud. — Victor Hugo

So I left my wonderfully intelligent family and soaked myself in the bath and considered drowning myself. Then I remembered I still had chocolate cake left over from yesterday so I came back up for air. Some things are worth living for. — Cecelia Ahern

It's only water," she said.
"Tell that to a drowning man," Giddon said. — Kristin Cashore

The irrevocable Hand That opes the year's fair gate, doth ope and shut The portals of our earthly destinies ; We walk through blindfold, and the noiseless doors Close after us, for ever. Pause, my soul , On these strange words for ever whose large sound Breaks flood-like, drowning all the petty noise Our human moans make on the shores of Time . O Thou that openest, and no man shuts; That shut'st, and no man opens Thee we wait! — Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

Thinking about averting plane crashes in 1935, or stopping infections of central lines in 2003, or rescuing drowning victims today, I realized that the key problem in each instance was essentially a simple one, despite the number of contributing factors. — Atul Gawande

Oil is drowning our oceans and drowning our boreal forests. — Winona LaDuke

I believe a Christian muffler shop owner should have the same right to refuse service to a gay couple, as a gay lifeguard has to refuse service to a drowning Christian. — Quentin R. Bufogle