You Do Not Drown Quotes & Sayings

Do Stones Feel?
Do stones feel?
Do they love their life?
Or does their patience drown out everything else?
When I walk on the beach I gather a few
white ones, dark ones, the multiple colors.
Don't worry, I say, I'll bring you back, and I do.
Is the tree as it rises delighted with its many
branches,
each one like a poem?
Are the clouds glad to unburden their bundles of rain?
Most of the world says no, no, it's not possible.
I refuse to think to such a conclusion.
Too terrible it would be, to be wrong. — Mary Oliver

There was a fire drill at school the next day. I think I'm more afraid of the fire alarm than I am of a fire. When the fire alarm goes off, you jump out of your skin. Your heart pounds and your ears buzz and your brain melts and all you want to do is get away from that horrible noise. "Get up and walk quickly out the door and to your right," said Mr. Dooley. "Do not pass go and do not collect two hundred dollars," said Donald. I held my hands over my ears to drown out the fire alarm. Outside we stood around waiting for the bell that means we could come back in again. "Yay! The roof is on fire! No more school!" someone joked. "Anybody got a match?" said someone else. Mr. Dooley said that wasn't funny. He said if there really was a fire, we'd be smart to know what to do. — Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

If any harm shall befall him, I will come after you, and find you where you sleep. I do not care where you lay your head or who with, my vengeance shall rain upon you until you drown. — J.R. Ward

Not yet," he wailed, as raw as the earth. "But you lay as though already dead, and I cannot go on without you. Do not leave me; do not die!" And I felt a grief from him to melt the mountain ice. Grief to drown in. Grief to both rend my heart and mend it at once. — Tosca Lee

You are a
hurricane of
a girl;

remember
to breathe
every once

and a while,
do not drown
within your
own storm. — Emma Bleker

Your Most Exalted Majesty, Your Grace, ect., ect.:
I don't know what ruddy else I can offer. You won't have a fig to do with my lands or my money or anything, I suppose, of value to anyone else. I suppose that makes you a good father but it certainly makes things rum for me. I haven't anything else to offer, but a sincere heart, one that aches for Bramble, her sweet, plucky spirit, her smart whippish mouth, her heart, and her dear hand.
I'm in agony now, hoping that my steward will convince you. If not I think I'll break all the windows in the house and drown myself in a bucket.
A most sincere heart-
Lord Edward Albert Hemly Haftenravenscher, Esq. — Heather Dixon

Leave it to the English to fabricate a lake," she tossed over her shoulder to Carla, who snickered.
"And leave it to the Italians to fall into it!"
"I was retrieving my hat!"
"Ah . . . that makes it all much more logical. Do you even know how to swim?"
"Do I know how to swim?" she asked, and he took more than a little pleasure in her offense.
"I was raised on the banks of the Adige! Which happens to be a real river."
"Impressive," he said, not at all impressed. "And tell me, did you ever swim in said river?"
"Of course! But I wasn't wearing" - she waved a hand to indicate her dress - "sixteen layers of fabric!"
"Why not?"
"Because you don't swim in sixteen layers of fabric!"
"No?"
"No!"
"Why not?" He had her now.
"Because you will drown!"
"Ah," he said, rocking back on his heels. "Well, at least we've learned something today. — Sarah MacLean

Try not to let the excitement overwhelm you, but I have more good news.'
I groaned. I knew that tone of voice. 'Don't say it.'
'Vasily is back from Caryeva.'
'You could do the kind thing and drown me now.'
'And suffer alone? I think not.'
'Maybe for your birthday you can ask that he be fitted with a royal muzzle,' I suggested.
'But then we'd miss all his exciting stories about the summer auctions. You're fascinated by the breeding superiority of the Ravkan racehorse, right?'
I let out a whimper. — Leigh Bardugo

I hear Your voice inside me, calling me home. Who will believe in me?

Those who know My voice.

I am not channeling. The word of God is upon my heart.

You have all you need. Stop looking to another. My Word is written within you. Ask and you shall receive. No Voice speaks clearer. Surrender to Me. Do not think what is next. It shall be shown for what it is. Listen to Me. Lest you forget, true wisdom comes only from Source.

Don't be afraid to be alone with yourself. I am here. Listen to Me as I speak clearly your name. Must you always seek to drown Me out? I am here. Hear Me now. I give you rest. Rest in Me, not in what you think. You are more than that. Oh, so much more you are. Listen to Me, listen up My dear. Hear Me clear. My words ring true like a bell. Yes, clear as a bell I speak unto you. Give Me room. Move over. Get out of your way, I say. I speak peace and love unto your heart. — Debra Clemente

Do you know the story of the scorpion and the frog? You know, the frog agrees to carry the scorpion across the river, because the scorpion promises not to sting him. And then the scorpion stings the frog, half way across the river. The drowning frog asks him why he did it, when they'll both drown, and the scorpion says that he's a scorpion, and it's his nature to sting. — Gregory David Roberts

They say that if you really want to kill yourself, no one can stop you. There are too many ways to do it. You can jump off a bridge or a building. You can hang yourself. You can crash a car or slit your wrists or swim out really far into the ocean until you drown. Sometimes I wonder why I'm not dead, if I really wanted to kill myself. — Albert Borris

It is funny how you do not miss affection until it is given, but once it is, it can never be enough; you would drown in it if possible. — Libba Bray

If you are thrown into the deep and do not swim, you will drown," he says, and raises his thin eyebrows. "So keep swimming, right? — Pierce Brown

Don't drown the man who taught you to swim. If you learned your trade or profession from the man, do not set up in opposition to him. — Charles Spurgeon

Oh, yes." He felt the pearls brush down his face again. Dory turned: he met her eyes and let her see the new pearls forming. "Anything that beautiful is terrible. Because it's outside of you. It's not you. You'll do anything to make it part of you. You'd eat it, drown in it, kill it, let it kill you. Anything to stop it from not being you. — Patricia A. McKillip

Do not let the loud utterances of your own wills anticipate, nor drown, the still, small voice in which God speaks. Bridle impatience till He does. If you cannot hear His whisper, wait till you do. Take care of running before you are sent. Keep your wills in equipoise till God's hand gives the impulse and direction. — Alexander MacLaren

Sorry, but I have to be who I am. Everyone else is taken ... So be your self! Speak your truth - if there are people around you who tempt you with non-existence blast through that and give them the full glory of who you are. Do not withhold yourself from the world. Do not piss on the incandescent gift of your existence. Do not drown yourself in the petty fog and dustiness of other people's ancient superstitions, unbeliefs, aggressions, culture and crap! No! Be a flare! We were born that way. Born perfectly happy being inconvenient to our parents. We shit, piss, cry, wake up at night, throw up on their shoulders, scream ... We are, in essence, in our humanity, perfectly comfortable with inconveniencing others. That's how we're born, how we grow and develop. I choose to inconvenience the irrational. — Stefan Molyneux

It is not easy to find the right way. You must learn to govern yourself, you must learn autonomy, you must manage your freedom or drown in it. You may strain the will after Experience because you need it for your books. Or you may perish under the heavy weight of Culture. You may make a fool of yourself anywhere. You may find illumination anywhere - in the gutter, in the college, in the corporation, in a submarine, in the library. No one man holds a patent on it. No man knows what it is likely to tell him to do. — Saul Bellow

At first I was like, No way am I saying that, but when you hang out with people who are always being supergrateful and appreciating things and saying thank you, in the end it kind of rubs off, and one day after I'd flushed, I turned to the toilet and said, "Thanks, toilet," and it felt pretty natural. I mean, it's the kind of thing that's okay to do if you're in a temple on the side of a mountain, but you'd better not try it in your junior high school washroom, because if your classmates catch you bowing and thanking the toilet they'll try to drown you in it. I explained this to Jiko, and she agreed it wasn't such a good idea, but that it was okay just to feel grateful sometimes, even if you don't say anything. Feeling is the important part. You don't have to make a big deal about it. — Ruth Ozeki

In the Old Language, she hissed, "If any harm shall befall him, I will come after you, and find you where you sleep. I do not care where you lay your head or who with, my vengeance shall rain upon you until you drown."
That last word was drawn out, until its syllable was lost in more growling.
Dead silence.
Until Doc Jane said dryly, "Annnnd this is why they say the female of the species is more dangerous than the male. — J.R. Ward

Nothing in the world scares me as much as bulimia. It was true then and it is true now. But at some point, the body will essentially eat of its own accord in order to save itself. Mine began to do that. The passivity with which I speak here is intentional. It feels very much as if you are possessed, as if you have no will of your own but are in constant battle with your body, and you are losing. It wants to live. You want to die. You cannot both have your way. And so bulimia creeps into the rift between you and your body and you go out of your mind with fear. Starvation is incredibly frightening when it finally sets in with a vengeance. And when it does,you are surprised. You hadn't meant this. You say: Wait, not this. And then it sucks you under and you drown. — Marya Hornbacher

You didn't want to put in the work to make us happen.
It was true. I had been so captivated by Duncan, so enamored, so infatuated, that I let his life drown mine for two years. I went along, and when I got tired of it, tired of it just being easy and comfortable and convenient but not love, I ended it. And that was why I had the man in my lobby looking at me like there were still places for us to go.
I had let him believe that he was my whole world, let him be everything, and then one day just stopped loving him and walked away. It was something I did, something I had always done - poured on the charm, made myself into the ideal partner, lover, friend, indispensable and irreplaceable, and then, when I got bored or tired or tapped out, instead of fighting, I just quit. It was wildly unfair, and the only people I didn't do it with were my family. Even my friends complained that I was always around and then just gone.
Nathan Qells — Mary Calmes

Do not
drown yourself in a man.

He will leave you struggling to
breathe. — Ijeoma Umebinyuo

When I was younger, I was told that there is too much inside me. That I have feelings where others have bone. At the age of seven, a doctor tapped inside my head and asked, "Do you choke on memories from time to time? Do you cry for no good reason at all? Do words take a hammer to your head and crack your skull?" Yes, yes, yes, I nodded. "Then you've definitely got them," he said, as he checked off a box on his list. "Too many feelings. What a shame. Try not to keep them inside or you'll drown. — Lora Mathis

Drink today, and drown all sorrow; you shall perhaps not do tomorrow. — John Fletcher

Of course a miracle may happen, and you may be a great painter, but you must confess the chances are a million to one against it. It'll be an awful sell if at the end you have to acknowledge you've made a hash of it."
"I've got to paint," he repeated.
"Supposing you're never anything more than third-rate, do you think it will have been worth while to give up everything? After all, in any other walk in life it doesn't matter if you're not very good; you can get along quite comfortably if you're just adequate; but it's different with an artist."
"You blasted fool," he said.
"I don't see why, unless it's folly to say the obvious."
"I tell you I've got to paint. I can't help myself. When a man falls into the water it doesn't matter how he swims, well or badly: he's got to get out or else he'll drown. — W. Somerset Maugham

That requires as much power as a small radio transmitter
and rather similar skills to operate. For it's the application of the power, not its amount, that matters. How long do you think Hitler's career as a dictator of Germany would have lasted, if wherever he went a voice was talking quietly in his ear? Or if a steady musical note, loud enough to drown all other sounds and to prevent sleep, filled his brain night and day? Nothing brutal, you appreciate. Yet, in the final analysis, just as irresistible as a tritium bomb. — Arthur C. Clarke

If every life is a river, then it's little wonder that we do not even notice the changes that occur until we are far out in the darkest sea. One day you look around and nothing is familiar, not even your own face.
My name once meant daughter, grandaughter, friend, sister, beloved. Now those words mean only what their letters spell out; Star in the night sky. Truth in the darkness.
I have crossed over to a place where I never thought I'd be. I am someone I would have never imagined. A secret. A dream. I am this, body and soul. Burn me. Drown me. Tell me lies. I will still be who I am. — Alice Hoffman

I wonder
from these thousand of "me's",
which one am I?
Listen to my cry, do not drown my voice
I am completely filled with the thought of you.
Don't lay broken glass on my path
I will crush it into dust.
I am nothing, just a mirror in the palm of your hand,
reflecting your kindness, your sadness, your anger.
If you were a blade of grass or a tiny flower
I will pitch my tent in your shadow.
Only your presence revives my withered heart.
You are the candle that lights the whole world
and I am an empty vessel for your light.
Rumi - "Hidden Music — Rumi

Nobody who says as little as he does is as simple as you'd think. It takes a lot to not say a lot, because when you're not talking, you're thinking, and he thinks a lot. My mum and dad talked all the time. Talkers don't think much; their words drown out any possibility of hearing their subconscious asking, Why did you say that? What do you really think? — Cecelia Ahern

That poem you like, how does it end?"
He knows how it ends. He's looked it up by now, that's why he asks.
But I answer him anyway.
"'We have lingered in the chambers of the sea, by sea-girls wreathed
with seaweed red and brown, till human voices wake us, and we drown.'"
Eliot shakes his head. "It does not need the last three words. The last
three words are wrong."
I laugh at his correcting a Nobel prize-winning poet, but I agree. I
know what drowning feels like. It doesn't need water. And human voices,
if they say the right things, can save you.
"Eliot, do you have a pen I can borrow?"
I can feel him smiling in the dark, and we watch the sea caress the
sand.
"That man in the poem, Mr. Prufrock, he was a coward, wasn't he?"
Eliot says.
My answer to his question is the same as his answer to mine. — Ray Cluley

You do not drown simply by plunging into water, you only drown if you stay beneath the surface. — Paulo Coelho