Transatlantic Quotes & Sayings

Decades from now, people will look back and wonder how societies could have acquiesced in a sex slave trade in the twenty-first century that is ... bigger than the transatlantic slave trade was in the nineteenth. They will be perplexed that we shrugged as a lack of investment in maternal health caused half a million women to perish in childbirth each year. — Sheryl WuDunn

It is romantic, you know, the transatlantic telephone. To speak so easily to someone nearly halfway across the globe. The telegraphed photograph - that, too, is romantic. Science is the greatest romance there is. — Agatha Christie

I think I've always believed in Ronald Reagan's adage, "Peace through Strength." Let's grow stronger on a transatlantic basis in our economies. — Mike Pence

For the first time he began to wonder whether he should jettison his transatlantic dream and settle for something more quotidian, perhaps focus his company on ship-to-shore communication. There was — Erik Larson

What's your point?" He spun around in his chair and took a brown file folder from a wire rack on the credenza behind him next to a couple of generic office plants. He opened it, took out a sheet of paper, and looked at it for a moment. Then he handed it to me. It was a fax from a bank in the Caymans called Transatlantic Bank & Trust (Cayman) Limited, located on Mary Street in George Town, Grand Cayman. A copy of a copy of a copy, festooned with smudges and photocopier artifacts. It was a letter from Roger, on Gifford Industries letterhead, to the bank's manager. A letter of instruction. — Joseph Finder

While at Oxford in 1999, I met Jonathan Fortier, who is a Montreal-born Canadian. Despite the challenges of a transatlantic relationship, we remained keen on each other and eventually married in 2002. — Anne Fortier

In 1903, Sir James Power, Lord Mayor of Dublin, was surprised to note on a transatlantic trip that the typical Irish immigrant in America was now "not merely a hewer of wood and a drawer of water." In fact, he remarked that they are "found occupying...respectable positions in society. — Rashers Tierney

In the firm expectation that when London shall be a habitation of bitterns, when St. Paul and Westminster Abbey shall stand shapeless and nameless ruins in the midst of an unpeopled marsh, when the piers of Waterloo Bridge shall become the nuclei of islets of reeds and osiers, and cast the jagged shadows of their broken arches on the solitary stream, some Transatlantic commentator will be weighing in the scales of some new and now unimagined system of criticism the respective merits of the Bells and the Fudges and their historians. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

I believe that transatlantic relations are very important and that President Bush's visit to Brussels, in a few days, will have a major impact on that. — Jean-Pierre Raffarin

Leon actually laughed. "They have slushies up front."
"Jesus Christ," Benjamin muttered. "Nordstrom's. Macy's. We could go to Paris for the spring season. I was expecting transatlantic flights."
I figured ignoring that was best for all concerned. "Is there an Old Navy around here? They've got shorts and stuff." I caught the look Benjamin gave me. "What?"
"Nothing. We just thought a svetocha would be more, well, difficult." Leon's mouth twitched. "I do seriously want a slushie."
I tried a tentative smile. I definitely liked him now. "I haven't had one in ages. Maybe the guys outside - the double blonds - would want one, too?"
For some reason Leon found that utterly fricking hysterical. H snorted and chuckled all the way through Housewares to the Health and Beauty section, and even Benjamin unbent enough to grin. — Lili St. Crow

My husband has some very interesting hobbies, and through him, I've learned to fly and earned my pilot's license. Together, we fly all over the United States. Since our children are all grown now, we also travel a great deal in Europe, but we take commercial flights because our plane is not really equipped to make transatlantic flights. — Betsy Byars

THE ENGLISHMAN'S VERY SHY (FOX-TROT) (Bloat): The Englishman's very shy, He's none of your Ca-sa-no-va, At bowling the ladies o-ver, A-mericans lead the pack - (Tantivy): - You see, your Englishman tends to lack That recklessness transatlantic, That women find so romantic Though frankly I can't see why . . . (Bloat): The polygamous Yank with his girls galore Gives your Brit-ish rake or carouser fits, (Tantivy): Though he's secretly held in re-ve-rent awe As a sort of e-rot-ic Clausewitz. . . . (Together): If only one could al-ly A-merican bedroom know-how With British good looks, then oh how Those lovelies would swoon and sigh, Though you and I know the Englishman's very shy. — Thomas Pynchon

We must show new energy in fighting back an old evil. Nearly two centuries after the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, and more than a century after slavery was officially ended in its last strongholds, the trade in human beings for any purpose must not be allowed to thrive in our time. — George W. Bush

Pop music has progressed. The singing voice has changed dramatically in pop music, and people now just sing the way they want to, in their speaking voice, instead of putting on some great transatlantic rock and roll sneer. — Steven Morrissey

The transatlantic relationship is vital for both our countries: France will remain a reliable ally of the United States. Nevertheless, ally does not mean aligned. — Francois Hollande

Transatlantic links are very important. — Francois Hollande

There are more slaves alive today than all the people stolen from Africa in the time of the transatlantic slave trade. Put another way, today's slave population is greater than the population of Canada, and six times greater than the population of Israel. — Kevin Bales

While majority opinion may not take kindly to forms of modern art, that same majority has also been hostile to most original and radical innovations, such as automobiles or airplanes or transatlantic cables or Protestantism or the theory that the earth is round and not flat. — Alfred H. Barr Jr.

There should be a Transatlantic renaissance between the US and Europe based on shared prosperity, security, and values. — John F. Kerry

Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence, and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world! — Alexander Hamilton

A brand-new thought: Transatlantic airmail. She tests the phrase, scratching it out on the paper, over and over, transatlantic, trans atlas, trans antic. The distance finally broken. — Colum McCann

In the spring of 1931, West African natives in the Cameroons sent New York $3.77 for relief for the "starving"; that fall Amtorgs's new York office received 100,000 applications for job in Soviet Russia. On a single weekend in April, 1932, the 'Ile de france' and other transatlantic liner carried nearly 4,000 workingmen back to Europe; in June, 500 Rhode Island aliens departed for Mediterranean ports. — William E. Leuchtenburg

Eighteen fifty-eight was a year of great technological advancement in the West. That was the year when Queen Victoria was able, for the first time, to communicate with President Buchanan, through the Transatlantic Telegraphic Cable. And they were the first to 'Twitter' transatlantically. — Hans Rosling

Remember preconceptions? Even though I'd landed hoping simply to somehow scrape the transatlantic fare home, I'd been an arrogant swine, imbued with that Old World toffee-nosed attitude: The United States of America's got no culture, not deep down. — Jonathan Gash

The fratricidal Yoruba wars of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were a great boost to the transatlantic traffic in human beings. There were constant skirmishes between the Ijebus, the Egbas, the Ekitis, the Oyos, the Ibadans, and many other Yoruba groups. Some of the smaller groups might even have been wiped out from history, as the larger ones enlarged their territory and consolidated their power. The vanquished were brought from the interior to the coast and sold to the people of Lagos and to communities along the network of lagoons stretching westward to Ouidah. And they in turn arranged the auctions at which the English, the Portuguese, and the Spanish loaded up their barracoons and slave ships. Some of these intertribal wars were waged for the express purpose of supplying slaves to traders. At thirty-five British pounds for each healthy adult male, it was a lucrative business. — Teju Cole

Saudade is presented as the key feeling of the Portuguese soul. The word comes from the Latin plural solitates, "solitudes," but its derivation was influenced by the idea and sonority of the Latin salvus, "in good health," "safe." A long tradition that goes back to the origins of Lusophone language, to the thirteenth-century cantiga d'amigo, has repeatedly explored, in literature and philosophy, the special feeling of a people that has always looked beyond its transatlantic horizons. Drawn from a genuine suffering of the soul, saudade became, for philosophical speculation, particularly suitable for expressing the relationship of the human condition to temporality, finitude, and the infinite. — Barbara Cassin

They might watch American movies, wear American clothes, even read American books but Bush and the Iraq War have made actual American people social lepers; she only has to open her mouth in some places to feel a wave of loathing directed at her. Katie is weary of pointing out that at least half her countrymen detest their President even more than Europe does, but it's no good. — Amanda Craig

Christopher Columbus introduced two phenomena that revolutionized race relations and transformed the modern world: the taking of land, wealth, and labor from indigenous people in the Western Hemisphere, leading to their near extermination, and the transatlantic slave trade, which created a racial underclass. — James W. Loewen

No history is mute. No matter how much they own it, break it, and lie about it, human history refuses to shut its mouth. Despite deafness and ignorance, the time that was continues to tick inside the time that is. — Eduardo Galeano

Having the United Kingdom in the European Union gives us much greater confidence about the strength of the transatlantic union and is part of the cornerstone of institutions built after World War II that has made the world safer and more prosperous. — Barack Obama

I'm all for greater co-operation between Europe and America because I think that sometimes we've missed out on the benefits that transatlantic trade could give both continents, and I've been pressing this since 1997. — Gordon Brown

The first transatlantic line that enabled ordinary citizens to call between North America and Europe was laid only in 1956. — Steven Johnson

Crossing the Atlantic on that new day was supposed to be a sharp delineation, a from-now-on demarcation in my life story. What I took off from was not supposed to arrive with me upon landing or ever pulse in me again. From the ocean and sky and the hours in flight, I intended to extract a selective, permanent amnesia. — Laurie Perez

The first transatlantic cable was not laid until 1956, and it could transmit only 36 calls at any one time. As late as 1966, only 138 simultaneous calls could take place between Europe and all of North America, — Michael Strong

The light on her face was a lesson, a book that she hoped he would want to read, but he looked away from her ... she did not want this man to leave her alone. He was kind. And she feared the loneliness of dreaming — Caryl Phillips

Luxury cruises were designed to make something unbearable (a two week transatlantic crossing) seem bearable. There's no need to do it now, there are planes. You wouldn't take a vacation where you ride on a stage coach for two months but there's all-you-can-eat shrimp. You wouldn't take a vacation where you had an old-timey appendectomy without anesthesia while steel drums play. You might take a vacation while riding on a camel for two days IF they gave you those little animal towels wearing your sunglasses. — Tina Fey

The methodologies of examining hip hop are borrowed from sociology, politics, religion, economics, urban studies, journalism, communications theory, American studies, transatlantic studies, black studies, history, musicology, comparative literature, English, linguistics, and other disciplines. — Michael Eric Dyson

The necessity for co-operation between Europe and the United States is bigger than ever. Only by close transatlantic co-operation can we face the world's challenges. — Jan Peter Balkenende

As far as the international issues are concerned, the most important thing is the state of the transatlantic relationships, Euro-Atlantic relationships: how to develop them and how to strengthen them further. — Marek Belka

Of course. NSA is rumored to tape record every transatlantic telephone conversation. Maybe they'd recorded this session. — Clifford Stoll

Gunn would be an important figure-rewarding, delightful, accomplished, enduring-in the history of English-language poetry even were his life not as fascinating as it now seems; he would be an important figure in the history of gay writing and in the history of transatlantic literary relations even were his poetry not so good as it is. With his life as it was and his works as they are, he's an obvious candidate for a volume of retrospective and critical essays, and this one is first-rate. — Stephen Burt