Harbor Me Quotes & Sayings

I started putting a wire up in secret and performing without permission. Notre Dame, the Sydney Harbor Bridge, the World Trade Center. And I developed a certitude, a faith that convinced me that I will get safely to the other side. If not, I will never do that first step. — Philippe Petit

Though the harbor is safe, ships were made to sail the sea. The same can be said for you and me. — Julie-Anne

Frostpine made a face. Lifting the cup, he dumped its contents down his throat. "Auugghh!" he yelled, his voice stronger than it had been since his return from the harbor. "Are you trying to kill me, woman?"
"If I mean to kill someone, I do it," Rosethorn told him. "I don't try. — Tamora Pierce

To all the ships at sea, and all the ports of call. To my family and to all friends and strangers. This is a message, and a prayer. The message is that my travels taught me a great truth. I already had what everyone is searching for and few ever find. The one person in the world who I was born to love forever. A person, like me, of the outer banks and the blue Atlantic mystery. A person rich in simple treasures. Self-made. Self-taught. A harbor where I am forever home. And no wind, or trouble or even a little death can knock down this house. The prayer is that everyone in the world can know this kind of love and be healed by it. If my prayer is heard, there will be an erasing of all guilt and all regret and an end to all anger. Please, God. Amen. — Nicholas Sparks

Much discomfort was based on human expectations. As a man, I expected to be warm and dry when I chose to be. Animals did not harbor any such beliefs. So it was raining. That part of me that was wolf could accept that. Rain meant being cold and wet. Once I acknowledged that and stopped comparing it to what I wished it to be, the conditions were far more tolerable. — Robin Hobb

People have been fighting and dying over religion for thousands of years. I could understand that fear. It creeps up on you a bit more when you're alone in a foreign land. You certainly worry about it more when you walk the same streets as violent people that harbor a clear hatred of your beliefs and values. The reality is some Muslims in the world would kill me for being Christian, just as some Christians in the world would kill Maya, Gita, Farid and Ridwan for being Muslim. Nowadays news outlets and social media have reified that fear. It keeps some people focused and aware. It paralyzes others. It blinds some of us. That's what happened to me. It's why I felt the whole world shake. Twice. — Tucker Elliot

Monsters are very real. But they're not just creatures. Monsters are everywhere. They're people. They're nightmares ... They are the things that we harbor within ourselves. If you remember one thing, even above remembering me, remember that there is not a monster dreamt that hasn't walked once within the soul of a man. — C. Robert Cargill

I must learn to love the fool in me
the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of my human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my Fool. — Theodore Isaac Rubin

Be the man who has the spirit of a ruthless tiger, ravaging every dusty corner of my soul.
Be the man for whom I will tame myself voluntarily..
Be the man who can make me forget my birth date in moments of utter dellusion.
Be the man whose arms are my harbor, whose lips are my shore, and whose name is my only salvation.
Be the man who erases my past and draws my future with trails of roses and kisses.
Be the man who makes me sigh behind the windows of Poetry, longing to be written.
Be the man whose cigarette's ashes are confounded with mine.
Be the man whose voice moves mountains inside me.
Be the man whose eyes devour the innocence within me with every piercing glance.
Be the man for whom I will transform exceptions into rules.
Be the man who will dare to tear this poem from my hands.
The man who will rewrite with the uncertainty of the futur every single one of my verses. — Malak El Halabi

Why hold secrets? Why harbor anything? Let me just share everything with you. Let me just talk. Let me let go of the censor that is within me ... I'm tired of trying to be someone other than who I am. — T. Scott McLeod

Grant me the stormy seas over a life of ease, the toil and madness of a life of effort, and adventure , and meaning. The safe harbor is not for me, not for long. Let the fearful stand at the shore and point as we head into the unknown, toward that vast horizon where the bold become legend. — Brendon Burchard

I hear there are people who actually enjoy moving. Sounds like a disease to me - they must be unstable. Though it does have it's poetry, I'll allow that. When an old dwelling starts looking desolate, a mixture of regret and anxiety comes over us and we feel like we are leaving a safe harbor for the rolling sea. As for the new place, it looks on us with alien eyes, it has nothing to say to us, it is cold. — Jan Neruda

If I seem to be over-interested in junk, it is because I am, and I have a lot of it, too - half a garage full of bits and broken pieces. I use these things for repairing other things. Recently I stopped my car in front of the display yard of a junk dealer near Sag Harbor. As I was looking courteously at the stock, it suddenly occurred to me that I had more than he had. But it can be seen that I do have a genuine and almost miserly interest in worthless objects. My excuse is that in this era of planned obsolescence, when a thing breaks down I can usually find something in my collection to repair it - a toilet, or a motor, or a lawn mower. But I guess the truth is that I simply like junk. — John Steinbeck

The cross of Christ is the sweetest burden that I ever bore; it is such a burden as wings are to a bird, or sails to a ship, to carry me forward to my harbor. — Samuel Rutherford

TIDES Every day the sea blue gray green lavender pulls away leaving the harbor's dark-cobbled undercoat slick and rutted and worm-riddled, the gulls walk there among old whalebones, the white spines of fish blink from the strandy stew as the hours tick over; and then far out the faint, sheer line turns, rustling over the slack, the outer bars, over the green-furred flats, over the clam beds, slippery logs, barnacle-studded stones, dragging the shining sheets forward, deepening, pushing, wreathing together wave and seaweed, their piled curvatures spilling over themselves, lapping blue gray green lavender, never resting, not ever but fashioning shore, continent, everything. And here you may find me on almost any morning walking along the shore so light-footed so casual. — Mary Oliver

I'll tell you an incident that happened right at the Brown Derby [restaurant] since I've been here in Honolulu," Armstrong tells a friend on one of the recordings. "You remember that white boy, he's a sailor or something, on one of these battleships, on Pearl Harbor, and he caught my show, and I come to find out he has damn near every record I made from childbirth. "He come up and shook my hand after the whole show was over . . . and he said, 'You know, I don't like Negroes.' "Right to my [expletive] face, that [expletive] told me. And so I said, 'Well, I admire your [expletive] sincerity.' "And he said, 'I don't like Negroes, but you're one [expletive] I'm crazy about. I've got every [expletive] record.' "I've said it for years. You take the majority of white people," continued Armstrong, "they always got one [expletive] at least that they're just crazy about, [expletive]. Every white man in the world got one [expletive] at least that they just love his dirty drawers. — Howard Reich

Then I saw the Temptation gleaming like fool's gold on the black water, and my anger returned. The ship was hers too; everything was hers. The room where I slept, the life she had saved . . . had she created it in the first place? And even now, my heart. All hers.
I was not a jealous man - it wouldn't bother me at all if only I had something of my own. So what was mine? The coat I wore? Bought with stolen gold. The money in my pocket? Taken from the harbormaster. I pulled out the handful of tarnished silver; it gleamed dully in the moonlight. I cast the coins into the harbor like dice, like bones. They tumbled into the water and I watched the ripples disappear as though they'd never been. — Heidi Heilig

As an adult, emerging from the ether's of an abusive childhood, i found myself left with a constant craving for protection, safety and security. I spent many years living my life, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I needed to control everything, in an effort to prevent any harm from coming my way (even though control is an illusion).
It took me many years to realize i had to become that safe harbor for myself. And that part of becoming that safe harbor was not about avoiding life, but rather, developing the confidence and coping skills to know that i would have what it takes to find my way through life's inevitable trials and tribulations. — Jaeda DeWalt

That's one of the most bewitching things about romance for me, as a reader and writer. Romances harbor hope for the reader. They create a direct emotional experience of certainty and potential to bridge the dark moments and help lead us into the light. No small wonder that romance is the source of all fictional genres and that romance continues to outsell every other form of human literary output. Hope is a magical thing, hard-won and easily snuffed. Anyone can point out ways for us to stay disappointed, compromised, and anxious, but opening anyone's eyes to possibilities helps them dream harder and reach further. Any book that can do that deserves a place on my shelves. — Damon Suede

Very slowly using two fingers, Annabeth drew her dagger. Instead of dropping it, she tossed it as far as she could into the water.
Octavian made a squeaking sound. "What was that for? I didn't say toss it! That could've been evidence. Or spoils of war!"
Annabeth tried for a dumb-blonde smile, like: Oh, silly me. Nobody who knew her would have been fooled. But Octavian seemed to buy it. He huffed in exasperation.
"You other two ... " He pointed his blade a Hazel and Piper. "Put your weapons on the dock. No funny bus
"
All around the Romans, Charleston Harbor erupted like a Las Vegas fountain putting on a show. When the wall of seawater subsided, the three Romans were in the bay, spluttering and frantically trying to stay afloat in their armor. Percy stood on the dock, holding Annabeth's dagger.
"You dropped this," he said, totally poker-faced.
-Heroes of Olympus — Rick Riordan

I gave you sympathy. *I* want sympathy!"
"Are you kidding me? You have the sexiest man on the planet wanting you. You're getting laid regularly. No sympathy for you! — Jill Shalvis

While my friends were discussing Pearl Harbor as the country's problem, I took it personally. It dawned on me that the Japanese attack could be my ticket out of high school. — Art Buchwald

Arin had taken position on the mountainside wall. He didn't see a ship enter the harbor.
But he saw a hawk--a small one, a kestrel--swoop over the city and dive toward the general.
The man pulled a tube from its leg and opened it. He went still.
He disappeared into the ranks of soldiers.
The Valorian army stopped its assault.
Then Arin's feet were moving along the wall, racing to face the sea, and although he couldn't have said that he knew what had happened, he knew that something had changed, and in his mind there was only one person who could change his world.
Another hawk was perched on the seaside battlements. It eyed him--head cocked, beak sharp, talons tight on stone. Snow laced its feathers.
The message it bore was short.

Arin,

Let me in.

Kestrel — Marie Rutkoski

Everything in him recoiled. The water was cold against his legs. His body had gone numb and yet he could still feel the wet give of his brother's rotting flesh beneath his hands. It's shame that eats men whole. He was drowning in it. Drowning in the Ketterdam harbor. His eyes blurred. "It isn't easy for me either." Her voice, low and steady, the voice that had once led him back from hell. — Leigh Bardugo

I like the fact that my compatriots have such vacant and protruding eyes. They fill me with virtuous pride. You can imagine what eyes are like (in the capitalist world). ...such eyes look at you with distrust, reflecting constant worry and torment. That's what they're like in the land of ready cash.
How different from the eyes of my people! Their steady stare is completely devoid of all tension. They harbor no thought - but what power! What spiritual power! Such eyes would not sell you. They couldn't sell anything or buy anything. You could spit in the eyes, and they'd call it God's (divine) dew... — Venedikt Erofeev

It was once said that this is the land of the free. There is, I believe, a statue out there in the harbor, with something written on it about "Give me your hungry ... your oppressed ... give me pretty much everybody"-that's the way I remember it, anyway. The idea of America is a mutt-culture, isn't it? Who the hell is America if not everybody else? We are-and should be-a big, messy, anarchistic polyglot of dialects and accents and different skin tones ... We need more Latinos to come here. And they should, whenever possible, impregnate our women. — Anthony Bourdain

Static cackled from the cafeteria speaker. A bored female voice come on. "Victoria Brennan, please report to the headmaster's office. Victoria Brennan to the headmaster's office."
Classmates glanced our way. Whispers sprang up around me.
"Not good." Shelton was reaching for his earlobe.
"Tell them you have amnesia," Hi said. "Or dementia. Pretend you're Joan of Arc."
"Thanks for the support, guys. If I'm not back for class, look for my body in the harbor."
Hiram's hand flew up. "I call her iTunes collection. Shelton can have the mutt."
"Nice. — Kathy Reichs

It kills me to think I didn't spot her headed for the rocks. Friends are supposed to act like harbor boats-let you know if you're off course. — Rebecca Wells

The name Mary Jo Quinn was written neatly in faded blue marker on the front of the scrapbook, its gray edges frayed with age and wear, as though it had been handled often. Such a memento was a strange thing to find in a used bookstore, especially when one considered its contents. I'd discovered the handmade tome buried on the bottom shelf on the back wall of a little musty-smelling shop in the tiny resort town of Copper Harbor. This picturesque community is the gateway to Isle Royale National Park, an island in the western quarter of Lake Superior that beckoned to hikers, kayakers and canoers. Copper Harbor is the northern-most bastion of civilization in Michigan on a crooked finger of land called the Keweenaw Peninsula. Its remote, pristine shoreline provided an excellent respite from a hellacious year for my best friend from high school and me on a late September weekend. — Nancy Barr

For me, my craft is sailing on,Through mists to-day, clear seas anon.Whate'er the final harbor be'T is good to sail upon the sea! — John Kendrick Bangs

Contrary to what has been written and said about me, I do not harbor hate in my heart for Lucifer. In fact, it is the opposite. I believe that the problems between us were caused because I loved him too much. He was unable to handle the sheer magnitude of it. With that and the free will I instilled within him, he made choices that in the end tore us apart. — Melyssa Winchester

You want listeners to smell the lavender, to feel the point of those knitting needles in a handbag of the granny who happens to harbor a loyalty to Madame Defarge. You want the listener to know the wood's burning in the stove when they walk into the song with me. Music is about all of your senses, not just hearing. — Tori Amos

Did you give the HSC ten thousand dollars?"
Ah, there it was, he thought, swallowing. He'd been hoping she wouldn't find out, but he supposed that was unrealistic in a town like Lucky Harbor. Taking his time, he ate cookie number two, then reached for a third.
She held the plate out of his reach. "Did you?" she asked.
He eyed her for a long moment. "Which answer will get me the rest of the cookies?"
"Oh, Ty," she breathed, looking worried as she lowered the plate. Worried for him, he realized.
-Mallory and Ty — Jill Shalvis

For as long as I could remember, a part of me had been waiting for the day it would happen; with the cunning that comes to people whose minds have been stripped to one desire, she picked the only day we weren't waiting for. — Tana French

I've been your friend for years with no ulterior motive," Angela reminded her, scowling.
"I don't know that," Kami said. "You could secretly harbor a fevered passion for me. You could have bodaciousasianbeauties bookmarked as one of your favorite sites. This could have been your motive for friendship all along."
Angela rolled her eyes. "I first met you when you were twelve. You were not exactly bodacious at twelve."
"I had hotential," Kami said. — Sarah Rees Brennan

I cannot here withhold the statement that optimism, where it is not merely the thoughtless talk of those who harbor nothing but words under their shallow foreheads, seems to me to be not merely an absurd, but also a really wicked, way of thinking, a bitter mockery of the most unspeakable sufferings of mankind. — Arthur Schopenhauer

I put the Vietnam War behind me a long time ago, and what I wanted to (do) among other things was help veterans also be able to come all the way home as some of our veterans have not been able to do. But I harbor no anger nor rancor. I'm a better man for my experience, and I'm grateful for having the opportunity of serving. — John McCain

Everybody knows about Pearl Harbor. The thing that really fascinated me is that through this tragedy there was this amazing American heroism. — Michael Bay

Father, I do acknowledge and confess
That I this honor, I this pomp have brought
To Dagon, and advanc'd his praises high
among the Heathen round; to God have brought
Dishonor, obloquy, and op'd the mouths
Of Idolists, and Atheists
[ ... ]The anguish of my Soul, that suffers not
Mine eye to harbor sleep, or thoughts to rest.
This only hope relieves me, that the strife
With mee hath end. — John Milton

He had been my lighthouse, leading me to safe harbor without fail. He'd weathered the storms with me, holding out hope I would find my way to him. His light never flickered, never went out. He was my steadfast beacon - my destination. — Genna Rulon

Block City
What are you able to build with your blocks?
Castles and palaces, temples and docks.
Rain may keep raining, and others go roam,
But I can be happy and building at home.
Let the sofa be mountains, the carpet be sea,
There I'll establish a city for me:
A kirk and a mill and a palace beside,
And a harbor as well where my vessels may ride.
Great is the palace with pillar and wall,
A sort of a tower on top of it all,
And steps coming down in an orderly way
To where my toy vessels lie safe in the bay.
This one is sailing and that one is moored:
Hark to the song of the sailors on board!
And see on the steps of my palace, the kings
Coming and going with presents and things! — Robert Louis Stevenson

I'll stab him," offers Jaden as she makes a stabbing motion.
"You expect me to play along?" Rob scoffs, gripping his arm protectively.
"Pretty much," replies Landon earnestly.
"You're serious?"
"As a heart attack."
"No," argues Rob. "I'm not going to let Jaden - or anyone else - skewer me." He's greeted with an amused silence. "Bleedin' crime is what it is," he mutters. "Why can't someone else go all noble sacrifice-y? It's because I'm English, ain't it? — Laura Kreitzer

The sudden, painful flare of envy caught me by surprise. I was a loner, my last few years in school. I could have done with a friend like that. — Tana French

The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
with silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door! — Emma Lazarus

It seemed to me that their love was based on their common need for order and mannerliness in their lives. Both had endured lives of chaos and incivility in their first marriages, and they provided each other with safe harbor at last. The town of Waterford had — Pat Conroy

I may be a lunatic, but then, wasn't my lunacy caused by a monster that lurks at the bottom of every human mind? Those who call me a madman and spurn me may become lunatics tomorrow. They harbor the same monster. — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Some Things, Say the Wise Ones Some things, say the wise ones who know everything, are not living. I say, you live your life your way and leave me alone. I have talked with the faint clouds in the sky when they are afraid of being left behind; I have said, Hurry, hurry! and they have said: thank you, we are hurrying. About cows, and starfish, and roses, there is no argument. They die, after all. But water is a question, so many living things in it, but what is it, itself, living or not? Oh, gleaming generosity, how can they write you out? As I think this I am sitting on the sand beside the harbor. I am holding in my hand small pieces of granite, pyrite, schist. Each one, just now, so thoroughly asleep. — Mary Oliver

If you want the naked beauty of my vulnerability, you have to have the strength to share the burden of, the private pain, that makes me feel so tender and fragile. For i am as strong, as i am, weak. If you want me to come home to you, be the safe harbor, in which, i can seek refuge. — Jaeda DeWalt

If Jesus were to ask me, as He did that poor demoniac in the Gospel: "What is your name?" I too would have to reply: "My name is legion, for there are many of us" (Mk 5:9). There are as many of us as there are desires, plans and regrets which we harbor, each one different from and contrary to others which pull us in opposite directions. They literally dis-tract us, drag us apart. — Raniero Cantalamessa

M. and I have plagued each other with our differences for more than forty years. But it is also a tonic.
Along with the differences that abide in each of us, there is also in each of us the maverick, the darling stubborn one who won't listen, who insists, who chooses preference or the spirited guess over yardsticks or even history. I suspect this maverick is somewhat what the soul is, or at least that the soul lives close by and companionably with its agitating and inquiring force. And of course all of it, the differences and the maverick uprisings, are part of the richness of life. If you are too much like myself, what shall I learn of you, or you of me? I bring home sassafras leaves and M. looks and admires. She tells me how it feels to float in the air above the town and the harbor, and my world is sweetened by her description of those blue miles. The touch of our separate excitements is another of the gifts of our life together. — Mary Oliver

I hope no one will think of ... sending me to Pearl Harbor. — Charles A. Lockwood

I discovered that I had, in the past two decades, written a far greater amount in the essay form than I remembered. Certainly I have written enough of it to demonstrate that I harbor no disdain for literary journalism or just plain journalism, under whose sponsorship I have been able to express much that has fascinated me, or alarmed me, or amused me, or otherwise engaged my attention when I was not writing a book. — William Styron

Bright star of Eanna, forgive me the manner of this, but you are the harbor of my soul's journeying. — Guy Gavriel Kay

I am choking in the suffocating foul air of the harbor. I want to hoist my sails in the open sea, even though a tempest may be blowing. Furled sails are always dirty. Those who would deride me are so many furled sails. They can do nothing. — Osamu Dazai

'Sag Harbor' was a very different book for me. It changed the way I thought about books that I wanted to do. — Colson Whitehead

Give me your past, all your pain, all your anger, all your guilt. Release it to me, and I will be a safe harbor for the life you need to leave behind. — Jewel E. Ann

My mother is Ketterdam. She birthed me in the harbor. And my father is profit. I honor him daily. — Leigh Bardugo