Quotes & Sayings About Icebergs

We'd pass icebergs floating in the middle of the ocean. They were gigantic, with strange formations carved into them. They were so haunting and majestic you could feel your heart break, but really they're just chunks of ice and they mean nothing. — Maria Semple

People were like icebergs. There was so much more than you could see. Everyone had secrets below the surface. — Courtney Sheinmel

For thousands of years, it had been nature
and its supposed creator
that had had a monopoly on awe. It had been the icecaps, the deserts, the volcanoes and the glaciers that had given us a sense of finitude and limitation and had elicited a feeling in which fear and respect coagulated into a strangely pleasing feeling of humility, a feeling which the philosophers of the eighteenth century had famously termed the sublime.
But then had come a transformation to which we were still the heirs ... Over the course of the nineteenth century, the dominant catalyst for that feeling of the sublime had ceased to be nature. We were now deep in the era of the technological sublime, when awe could most powerfully be invoked not by forests or icebergs but by supercomputers, rockets and particle accelerators. We were now almost exclusively amazed by ourselves. — Alain De Botton

Icebergs behoove the soul (both being self-made from elements least visible) to see themselves: fleshed, fair, erected, indivisible. — Elizabeth Bishop

The big icebergs that drift into warmer water melt much more rapidly under water than on the surface, and sometimes a sharp, low reef extending two or three hundred feet beneath the sea is formed. If a vessel should run on one of these reefs half her bottom might be torn away. — Edward Smith

I am mad with joy.
At least I think it's joy. Strangers have come, and it's a whole new game. I kiss the ice on the frozen creeks, I press my ear to it, honoring the water that rattles below, for by water they came: the icebergs parted as if gently pushed back by enormous hands, and the ship sailed through, sea-eager, foamy-necked, white sails, riding the swan-road, flying like a bird! O happy Grendel! Fifteen glorious heroes, proud in their battle dress, fat as cows! — John Gardner

It may be said that poems are in one way like icebergs: only about a third of their bulk appears above the surface of the page. — Howard Nemerov

Cool was a mild term for her demeanor. In truth, he suspected icebergs at the North Pole might be a shade or two warmer. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

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

They keep saying that sea levels are rising an' all this. It's nowt to do with the icebergs melting, it's because there's too many fish in it. Get rid of some of the fish and the water will drop. Simple. Basic science. — Karl Pilkington

The sea-lentils tied to giant serpentine string beans, sea-liquor brine, sea-lyme grass, sea-moss, sea-cucumbers. He never knew the sea had such a lavish garden - sea-plumes, sea-grapes, sea-lungs. [ ... ] The sky put on its own evanescent spectacles, a pivoting stage, fugitive curtains, decors for ballets, floating icebergs, unrolled bolts of chiffon, gold and pearl necklaces, marabous of oyster white, scarves of Indian saris, flying feathers, shorn lambs, geometric architecture in snows and cotton. His theater was the clouds, where no spectacle repeated itself. — Anais Nin

Like icebergs, people normally expose only a small part of themselves, and generally just the part they wish to show. — Nikki Sex

No one is fit to judge a book until he has rounded Cape Horn in a sailing vessel, until he has bumped into two or three icebergs, until he has been lost in the sands of the desert, until he has spent a few years in the House of the Dead. — Van Wyck Brooks

Two days like icebergs bleak, blank, half-melting, all frigid, mainly out of sight, and definitely a threat to peace of mind drifted by and were good to put behind. — Roger Zelazny

Percy was waiting for them. He looked mad.
He stood at the edge of the glacier, leaning on the staff with the golden eagle, gazing down at the wreckage he'd caused: several hundred acres of newly open water dotted with icebergs and flotsam from the ruined camp.
The only remains on the glacier were the main gates, which listed sideways, and a tattered blue banner lying over a pile of now-bricks.
When they ran up to him, Percy said, "Hey," like they were just meeting for lunch or something.
"You're alive!" Frank marveled.
Percy frowned. "The fall? That was nothing. I fell twice that far from the St. Louis Arch."
"You did what?" Hazel asked.
"Never mind. The important thing was I didn't drown. — Rick Riordan

I'm in the Dance Band on the Titanic Singing "Nearer my God to thee" and the icebergs on the starboard bow Won't you dance with me? — Harry Chapin

Only an unhinged movie survives as a disconnected series of images, of peaks, of visual icebergs. It should display not one central idea but many. It should not reveal a coherent philosophy of composition. It must live on, and because of, its glorious ricketiness. — Umberto Eco

When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else. — Margaret Atwood

His icebergs are strange monuments with a symbol embodied in their form and their colours. They do not freeze you when you look at them, for they are not of ice, they are what Lawren Harris feels and thinks after he has contemplated them — J.D. Salinger

people were like icebergs--most of what really went on, especially the ugliness, was submerged — Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child

The CIA's resources should be focused on monitoring terrorists in caves-not polar bears on icebergs. — John Barrasso

The Earth keeps turning, night and day, spit-roasting all the tanned
Tired icebergs and polar bears, making white almost contraband.
The biosphere on a rotisserie emits a certain sound
That tells the stars that Earth was moaning pleasure while it drowned.

- "Poem by the Bridge at Ten-Shin — Frederick Seidel

It seemed to me that there was nothing new to be discovered ever again. Our society was utterly, ruinously derivative (although the word derivative as a criticism is itself derivative). We were the first human beings who would never see anything for the first time. We stare at the wonders of the world, dull-eyed, underwhelmed. Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building. Jungle animals on attack, ancient icebergs collapsing, volcanoes erupting. I can't recall a single amazing thing I have seen firsthand that I didn't immediately reference to a movie or TV show. — Gillian Flynn

APPROACH
Rain is falling. Winter approaches. I drive towards it. In the slow rain. In the semi-darkness. Cello music is playing in the car. The deep sad sound of the cello. It almost swamps me. Routine endeavours to swamp me. The everyday paying of bills.
But I paint men walking in a city of icebergs and crystal. Some of the icebergs are red. I paint a woman swimming in green wavy water. Surrounded by desert mesas. Bright orange in the sunlight. With darker orange for shadows. I paint two people. With purple and pink and yellow and blue circles overlapping the boundaries of their bodies. Dancing.
Life is not ordinary. When I see you tonight I will press my lips to your eyelids. Each one in turn. I will rub my fingertips over the skin on the back of your hands and around your wrists. I will sigh. I will growl. I will whinny. I will gallop into your smile. One sharp foot after the other. — Jay Woodman

He's a love-'em-and-leave-'em kind of guy. And though he's not a Lord, he does have a curse hanging over his head. I have the book to prove it."
William growled low in his throat. "Anya! Must you share my secrets with everyone?" He flattened his palms on the arms of his chair. "Fine. If you can spill, I can, too. Anya's the reason the Titanic sank. She was playing chicken with the icebergs."
Scowling, Anya anchored her hands on her hips. "William had a bronze made of his penis and placed it on his mantel. — Gena Showalter

Successful leaders are like icebergs. When you look at an iceberg, you see only about 10 percent of it, and the rest of it is hidden under the water. When you look at successful leaders, you see only a fraction of their lives. You see the part that looks really good, but there's usually a lot that remains hidden that's neither exciting nor glamorous. Tennis star Arthur Ashe said, "True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever the cost." True leadership is the same. — John C. Maxwell

Dazzling ice stars bombarded the world with rays, which splintered and penetrated the earth, filling earth's core with their deadly coldness, reinforcing the cold of the advancing ice. And always, on the surface, the indestructible ice-mass was moving forward, implacably destroying all life. I felt a fearful sense of pressure and urgency, there was no time to lose, I was wasting time; it was a race between me and the ice. Her albino hair illuminated my dreams, shining brighter than moonlight. I saw the dead moon dance over the icebergs, as it would at the end of the world, while she watched from the tent of her glittering hair. — Anna Kavan

But all cities were icebergs, the real power underneath — Victoria Schwab

In 'Deadliest Catch,' we have men in ships in rough seas catching crabs. With 'Whale Wars,' we have men and women from a dozen different nations going out to sea in rough weather to help save the whales. We also have icebergs, whales, penguins, and dramatic ship-to-ship confrontations. — Paul Watson

Build Icebergs, Not Skyscrapers — Miles Anthony Smith

In simply thinking his name, an iceberg of frozen emotions loomed on my horizon. Everything I knew about icebergs I learned from the Titanic.: You saw the tip of the iceberg floating in the water but what you didn't see was all that lurked beneath the surface. I didn't want - and I couldn't afford - another shipwreck in my life. — Judith Fertig

This may be one of the most astonishing, and tragic, hummingbird effects in all of twentieth-century technology: someone builds a machine to listen to sound waves bouncing off icebergs, and a few generations later, millions of female fetuses are aborted thanks to that very same technology. — Steven Johnson

Thoughts always moved slowly through Brutha's mind, like icebergs. They arrived slowly and left slowly and when they were there they occupied a lot of space, much of it below the surface. — Terry Pratchett

Ice shelves in general have episodic carvings and there can be large icebergs breaking off - I'm talking 100km or 200km long - every 10 or 20 or 50 years. — Ian Allison

We are like icebergs in the ocean: one-eighth part consciousness and the rest submerged beneath the surface of articulate apprehension. — William Gerhardie

I don't want to be buried in the ground, rotting, with all those worms. What I would love is to have my body dropped where you have those big icebergs and the water is so cold and pure, to be eaten by a polar bear or a seal or an otter. — Jean-Claude Van Damme

Her sentences were icebergs, with just the tip of her thought coming out of her mouth, and the rest kept up in her head, which I was starting to think was more and more beautiful the longer I looked at her. — Gregory Galloway

I'm looking for the binding energy of a look
a crop of reflections to be reaped
in a winter of thorn
when icebergs of illusion will melt
to be served at high tea
and the spaces between the poles pinned down — Nancy Peters

It's as if we regard other people as psychological crystals, with everything important refracted to the visible surface, while regarding ourselves as psychological icebergs, with the majority of what matters submerged and invisible. — Kathryn Schulz

Melting icebergs aren't beheading Christians in the Middle East, — Reince Priebus

People are icebergs, with just a bit you can see and loads you can't. — David Mitchell

Most grown people are like icebergs, three-tenths showing, seven-tenths submerged - that is why a collision with one of them is unexpectedly hurtful ... — Rumer Godden

Some points in time cannot flow. Think of those big-ticket moments, the ones you could still recite from fifth grade: your 1492 and Civil Wars, the Titanic and presidential assassinations. These are icebergs, solid and immense, forcing incalculable eddies to swirl around them. — Thomm Quackenbush