c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Not an exact quote, more like an opinion, a thought. Dementors suck out happiness from people. The make people remember their worst moments in life. The way to defeat them / repel them is to cast a patronus charm, [incantation: expecto patronum. If my latin serves me right it means "I expect / I command my patron].The difficulty lies in casting the charm while those foul creatures make you feel terrible and the charm only works if you can conjure up a most happy memory.I suggest a new / additional interpretation of JK Rowling's idea:Demen - tors are your inner demons that make you feel terrible, things you did in your life, terrible losses you experienced (Harry hears his mother's screams) and negative emotions.Those inner demons TORment you and your soul. You can only escape those horrible impressions with an overwhelming positive force of imagination. Happy moments in your life, thoughts about friends, family, love and connection versus the horrible loneliness that your inner demons create.
— ThomThor
The more consciousness there is in such a sufferer who in despair wills to be himself, the more his despair intensifies and becomes demonic. It usually originates as follows. A self that in despair wills to be itself is pained in some distress or other that does not allow itself to be taken away from or separated from his concrete self. So now he makes precisely this torment the object of all his passion, and finally it becomes a demonic rage. By now, even if God in heaven and all the angels offered to help him out of it- no, he does not want that, now it is too late. Once he would gladly have given everything to be rid of this agony, but he was kept waiting; now it is too late, now he would rather rage against everything and be the wronged victim of the whole world and of all life, and it is of particular significance to him to make sure that he has his torment on hand and that no one takes it away from him- for then he would not be able to demonstrate and prove to himself that he is right. This eventually becomes such a fixation that for an extremely strange reason he is afraid of eternity, afraid that it will separate him from his, demonically understood, infinite superiority over other men, his justification, demonically understood, for being what he is.
— Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening
The more consciousness there is in such a sufferer who in despair wills to be himself, the more his despair intensifies and becomes demonic. It usually originates as follows. A self that in despair wills to be itself is pained in some distress or other that does not allow itself to be taken away from or separated from his concrete self. So now he makes precisely this torment the object of all his passion, and finally it becomes a demonic age. By now, even if God in heaven and all the angels offered to help him out of it- no, he does not want that, now it is too late. Once he would gladly have given everything to be rid of this agony, but he was kept waiting; now it is too late, now he would rather rage against everything and be the wronged victim of the whole world and of all life, and it is of particular significance to him to make sure that he has his torment on hand and that no one takes it away from him- for then he would not be able to demonstrate and prove to himself that he is right. This eventually becomes such a fixation that for an extremely strange reason he is afraid of eternity, afraid that it will separate him from his, demonically understood, infinite superiority over other men, his justification, demonically understood, for being what he is.
— Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening
We all have our demons, it is not anyone else's duty to validate them.
— Sara Secora
...please don’t throw any more rocks at the barrier keeping the demonic hordes of the void from pouring over the world.
— Garon Whited, Nightlord Orb
Let me get this straight," I said once I was settled securely on the rock. "I was struck by some kind of magical energy sent from Odin that shot out of the lights in the storeroom at Macy's, hitting me and knocking me into a pile of shoes? And because of that, I'm now immortal?
— Amanda  Carlson, Struck
I just kill them because they were monsters and demons.
— Deyth Banger
If God thought it necessary to offer rewards for love, your God must be immoral.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons
I was torn apart. But you, my knight, you found all the pieces and put me back together.
— Juliette Cross, The Deepest Well
Humans were made for love and beauty
—  their vulnerability was what made them feel on the deepest level and what could also crush their will to live.
The more perfect a person is on the outside, the more demons they have on the inside.
— Sigmund Freud
Science and reason have, from the beginning of time, played a secondary and subordinate part in the life of nations; so it will be till the end of time. Nations are built up and moved by another force which sways and dominates them, the origin of which is unknown and inexplicable: that force is the force of an insatiable desire to go on to the end, though at the same time it denies that end. It is the force of the persistent assertion of one's own existence, and a denial of death. It's the spirit of life, as the Scriptures call it, 'the river of living water,' the drying up of which is threatened in the Apocalypse. It's the æsthetic principle, as the philosophers call it, the ethical principle with which they identify it, 'the seeking for God,' as I call it more simply. The object of every national movement, in every people and at every period of its existence is only the seeking for its god, who must be its own god, and the faith in Him as the only true one. God is the synthetic personality of the whole people, taken from its beginning to its end. It has never happened that all, or even many, peoples have had one common god, but each has always had its own. It's a sign of the decay of nations when they begin to have gods in common. When gods begin to be common to several nations the gods are dying and the faith in them, together with the nations themselves. The stronger a people the more individual their God. There never has been a nation without a religion, that is, without an idea of good and evil. Every people has its own conception of good and evil, and its own good and evil. When the same conceptions of good and evil become prevalent in several nations, then these nations are dying, and then the very distinction between good and evil is beginning to disappear. Reason has never had the power to define good and evil, or even to distinguish between good and evil, even approximately; on the contrary, it has always mixed them up in a disgraceful and pitiful way; science has even given the solution by the fist. This is particularly characteristic of the half-truths of science, the most terrible scourge of humanity, unknown till this century, and worse than plague, famine, or war. A half-truth is a despot... such as has never been in the world before. A despot that has its priests and its slaves, a despot to whom all do homage with love and superstition hitherto inconceivable, before which science itself trembles and cringes in a shameful way.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons
The starlight, which seemed strangely bright tonight, wasn't starlight at all. Instead, Lucifer's demons had gathered high in the firmament above. It was their eyes that shone like stars through the wildfire smoke.
— Lauren Kate, Unforgiven
Would any of you like to share your career aspirations within the class? Jim?I dunno, to be honest, I was just hoping to be able to keep the demons away...
— Jillian Tamaki, SuperMutant Magic Academy
Every day the men around me came to exercise their bodies
—  I came to exorcise my demons
...and in fact I've noticed that faith always seems to be less in the daytime
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons
After many missions in a plethora of peculiar realms, he’d managed to keep the fear of monsters locked away, but his own evil terrified him more than any demon. Snow fell hard, bodies fell harder.The snow was blue here, a shade lighter than the crystalline trees surrounding them. They were in the ice jungle of Eltika, where the undergrowth was littered with a thousand ice shards and the tree vines emitted vapour cold enough to cause frostbite.Arantay took time to survey the battle before his next opponent.
— Will   Collins, A Darker Shade of Sorcery
If one is not careful, even our darkest demons become our closest friends.
— B. Murguia
Isaac stopped her at the bottom of the stairs with a crooked smile. "I would wish you sweet dreams, but how can they be memorable if I won't be in them?
— Chloe Jacobs, Greta and the Lost Army
You wouldn't recognize a good thing if it was spanking your ass.
— Kresley Cole, Kiss of a Demon King
You can't always save the ones you love.
— Justine Winter, Guardians Dynasty
Demon possession strains the boundaries of credulity, given the sheer number of times it seems to happen. One would really hope demons had better things to do with their time.
— Kelley Armstrong, Omens
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” (Friedrich Nietzsche)
— Sigmund Brouwer, Devil's Pass
BLARGLE SLORG NOTH HARGHLE FTHAGN! You know. The usual.
— Jim Butcher, Skin Game
Ah hon, we all have our own demons to fight, guardians or not.
— C.K. Dawn, Cloak of Shadows
We all have demons, Crash," she said quietly. "But you don't have to let them define you.
— T.L. Shreffler, Ferran's Map
The hordes of demonic activity at times can take advantage of those who are wounded by others in the body of Christ. When we allow any hurt we can be used of the enemy to sow discord into God's work and His body.
— Greg  Gordon
The last time I checked,I didn't have any special talent,thought Kara.Can I paint a demon to death?Drown it in some gouache?
— Kim Richardson, Marked
I heard her scream one night while she was sleeping.Heard but didn't see.When I turned, there was nothing.No one.Only darkness.But I know what I heard.
— Melanie A. Gabbard, The Tome of Knowledge
She was Lilith, First Wife of Adam, Queen of the Night, Mother of Demons, Stealer of Children, and he was her Revenant - her undead warrior. And she would use him, and the power of his spear, to destroy her enemies and punish her wayward children.,
— Alan Kinross, Longinus the Vampire
Being human was a lot more difficult than it looked. Demon was easy. Demon was simple. Human was…terrifying." Muse
— Pippa DaCosta, Ties That Bind
You're telling me a shape-shifting demon just walked out onto Fifth Avenue and blended in with the crowd?" I asked. "Hailed a fucking cab after tearing everyone to pieces down here?
— Nicholas Kaufmann, Die and Stay Dead
The Mad Affliction's arm shot out of the cage, grasping for me. I jumped back. His long, ragged talons swiped the air in front of me."Free me!" the Mad Affliction cried. He grasped for Bethany, but she backed away, too. "Free me and know the living nightmare that is unending madness!""You're not doing yourself any favors," I told him.
— Nicholas Kaufmann, Die and Stay Dead
Everybody has demons, some more than others
— Kat Unda
Because in my head I have more demons than it should be have
— Kat Unda
We are all searching for someone whose demons play well with ours.
— Faraaz Kazi
The scariest thing about monsters is that they hide. They hide in your head where no one else can see them, making it feel almost as if no one can save you from them.
— Meghan Blistinsky
You will know who the enemy is intimidated by because they're the ones he targets and keeps beating down.
— Donna Lynn Hope
I dinna want to disappoint ye, but we's in a cellar right here, and it's full o' tatties.'After a while a voice said: 'So where izzit?''Maybe it's got the day off?''What's a demon need a day off for?''Tae gae an' see its ol' mam an' dad, mebbe?''Oh, aye? Demons have mams, do they?
— Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith
I’m not going to hide away and leave my friends to the corelings!” she shouted. “We’ll find a way to ward the Holy House, and make our stand here. Together! And if demons should dare come and try to take my children, I have secrets of fire that will burn them from this wor
— Peter V. Brett, The Warded Man
I prefer not to call them demons. It demeans their nature. "But isn't that what they are?""We should pity them more than fear them Alfred. They were angels once.""Yea, but didn't you say they rebelled against God? They got what they deserved.""Perhaps." He sighed. "Yet do we not all hope and pray that we ourselves escape that we truly deserve? None have fallen as far or as irrevocably as the outcasts of heaven. Did you not find them beautiful." "...They have gazed upon the very face of God, the face they will see no more for all eternity-and so I pity them. Even as I envy them for having seen it.
— Rick Yancey, The Seal of Solomon
Quitting a job can be like an exorcism where you cast out a demon. The demon is the foreign spirit who occupies you through your occupation.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
I pull on her tether all the time but it won’t sink in. I have a feeling I’m using too much magic. I can’t hold so many under my control and pull them in deep. Dean is the only one I have fully immersed. I am the puppet master. I am the only player on the board.Pacey doesn’t even know that the game has begun."-Lilith
— Ashley Jeffery, Released Lilith: Part 2
He is a warden for Hells Prison. A politician shoved in the guise of a devil. He doesn’t care about the Lost Souls he steals with his promises of illusion. He just wants numbers like the republicans want votes. He lives with the other Fallen and Demons in a place made especially for their kind…The city of Sin itself. Las Vegas, Nevada.They call it Wanton.I call it hell. It's certainly hot enough."-Lilith
— Ashley Jeffery, Released Lilith: Part 2
Hunter and hunted. There are so many ways in which a man can destroy a woman.” Her handmaid sighed. “When it comes to matters of the heart, immortals know nothing.
— Paula Altenburg, The Demon Lord
She pressed his amulet to her lips, then let it fall on its chain to rest between their two bodies. “We could leave here,” she said to him. “We could run away together.”He frowned at the stars, the bubble of peacefulness that had settled around them after their lovemaking now ruptured. “I run from nothing and no one.
— Paula Altenburg, The Demon Lord
We are Morgensterns," he added, a dark ache in his voice. " The bright stars of morning. The children of Lucifer, the most beautiful of all God's angels. We are so much lovelier when we fall." He paused. "Look at me , Clary. Look at me.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire
He’d never heard of a demon with freckles before.
— Michael Scott, The Death of Joan of Arc
She was invisible. Forgettable. Forgotten.
— Johnny Worthen, Beatrysel
She looked up at him with dark, tragic eyes, and again he was struck by the illusion of beauty and innocence she presented. Instinct had him wanting to reach for her, to take her in his arms and offer comfort. Then his ribs twitched with pain and he remembered she was not all that innocent, no matter what her mother believed about her or how she presented herself. He called to mind an image of his sister and her torn remains, and of the monstrosity she had died giving birth to, and any pity he might have felt for Airie fled.
— Paula Altenburg, The Demon's Daughter
Understand their hatred is beyond human comprehension. They abhor the Creator and so also the creation. Whatever brings joy, whatever brings peace, whatever redeems the dark deed or relieves the terrors of the night and their enemies.
— Rick Yancey, The Seal of Solomon
We all have our demons, I just happen to exorcise mine by writing them out.
— Sai Marie Johnson
The scent of freshly laundered clothing that had been dried in the desert sun lingered around him. She breathed deeply, remembering how kind he had been to her that day, and she closed her eyes. The tip of his tongue brushed her mouth, and her lips parted slightly. She tilted her head back, relaxing against the strength of his arm as he cradled her. His other hand found her hip. Kisses, not so light now, trailed along her jaw before dipping lower. She sighed, the roughness of his unshaven cheek teasing the delicate skin of her throat, sparking a sense of restlessness in her that she did not know how to resolve. She wanted to touch him too, to kiss him in return, but she also wanted to stay just as she was because she liked what he did to her.
— Paula Altenburg, The Demon's Daughter
I'm a demon. I do bad things. It's genetic.
— I.D. Locke, Blind Desire
Another man’s property or not, Creed could not walk away from this and ignore it. He draped an arm around her and drew her to him so that her cheek rested against his thigh. His other hand stroked the top of her head, his fingers tangling through her soft hair. He was large in comparison to her, and he did not wish for her to be frightened by him again, so he sent a faint tendril of compulsion to belay her fear while he whispered a few nonsensical words of comfort.
— Paula Altenburg, The Demon Creed
Creed must have responded in kind, because with a gasp, she broke off the kiss. Time crawled to a standstill, then shifted to a sprint. Nieve shoved the gun lodged between them into his ribs. His hand still covered hers, and with the well-trained instincts of an assassin, he jerked the gun to the side so that the bullet she fired embedded into the ground, kicking up dirt, and not in his heart.
— Paula Altenburg, The Demon Creed
Wishing for something doesn’t mean you should have it, and saying something doesn’t necessarily make it true.
— Paula Altenburg, Black Widow Demon
Her demon had pursued and seduced him. She hoped he hadn’t placed too much importance on that.
— Paula Altenburg, Black Widow Demon
But maybe you carried your demons with you everywhere, the way you carried your shadow.
— Lauren Oliver, Panic
Demons run when a good man goes to war.Night will fall and drown the sun,When a good man goes to war.Friendship dies and true love lies,Night will fall and the dark will rise,When a good man goes to war.Demons run, but count the cost.The battle's won but the child is lost.
— Steven Moffat
Get your filthy paws off my son, feet pue tan!" Cherise
— Sherrilyn Kenyon, Illusion
It was how it had been with the madman among the tombs, that their number was legion, far in excess at any rate if the number listed on the back of the door as the room's maximum occupancy.
— Kem Nunn, Chance
No need to fret, pretty one. I hoped to catch you alone here
— Sai Marie Johnson, Lover Undefined
I never studied on fighting demons, but that don't mean I aim to let this one defeat us. The dark ones have their share of limitations too.
— Erik Bundy, Magic and Murder Among the Dwarves
I’m a holiday Christian at best and I’d never given much thought to demons. They were an adult version of the boogieman hiding in every kid’s closet.
— Thomm Quackenbush, Of Christmas Present
When the demons start coming out— that's when you're nearing the light! It's hard for cockroaches to stay put without all the shadows. So in that case, keep on going!
— C. JoyBell C.
As we write we summon little demons.
— Neil Gaiman, Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions
Not specifically. "Demons have been on Earth as long as we have. They're all over the world, in their different forms – Greek daemons, Persian daevas, Hindu asuras, Japanese oni. Most belief systems have some method of incorporating both their existence and the fight against them. Shadowhunters cleave to no single religion, and in turn all religions assist us in our battle. I could as easily have gone for help to a Jewish synagogue or a Shinto temple, or – Ah. Here it is.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Bones
Its where my demons hide.
— Imagine Dragons
It was hard to describe what she had sensed, but it had been distinct and clear, like the shape of a leafless tree against the sky, or a crow flying across a ploughed field. She hesitated to close her eyes again, for it had risen up close to her face like something appalling.
— Jessica Rydill, Malarat
If the demons lived anywhere it was here.
— Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
When I was small I dreamed of demons. I thought they were under my bed, but you said, it can't be so, you don't get demons our side of the river, the guards won't let them over London Bridge.
— Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
For as long as I've known him, Sam has been trying to out-run his demons. But he can't see the truth. His problems - they never sleep, never take a break. They'll wear him down before he can wear them out.
— Lisa Magnum
Certain things are expected of you when you’re a demon. Take the grotesque bodies, for example. Powerful, lethal, but definitely not beauty pageant material. Which is why the more talented among the demon race normally reverted to a basic human form. Those that couldn’t take human form were destined to a life of servitude or as a meal on legs.
— Samantha Blake, Priestess Under Fire
Giving someone a piece of your soul is better than giving a piece of your heart. Because souls are eternal.
— Helen Boswell, Mythology: The Wicked
Demons," drawled the blond boy, tracing the word on the air with his finger. "Religiously defined as hell's denizens, the servants of Satan, but understood here, for the purposes of the Clave, to be any malevolent spirit whose origin is outside our own home dimension -
— Cassandra Clare, City of Bones
Then we still have time!” I gasp. “It’s not too late. We know what he’s going to do. We’ll return to the cave and figh
— Darren Shan, Demon Apocalypse
But...he's a demon. Isn't that sort of the main category of Things to Smite?
— Bethany Frenette, Dark Star
It was surely one thing to respect the Dark Arts as a dangerous enemy, another to speak of them with a loving caress in his voice?
— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
What was a demon but a lost soul, one that had been forced to use his skills to survive.
— Alice Hoffman, The Story Sisters
Demons were said to be cruel, but a demon would never have been so brutal as this. A demon merely called you by name, threw his arms around you, whispered his plight, understood yours, then took you for his own.
— Alice Hoffman, The Story Sisters
I stop reading after half an hour. I’ve had enough. Humanity has hit a brick wall. We’re facing our end, like the dinosaurs millions of years before us. The only difference is we’ve got journalists on hand to document every blow and setback, cataloguing our rapid, painful downfall in vibrant, vicious detail. Personally, I think the dinosaurs had the better deal. When it comes to impending, unavoidable extinction, ignorance is bliss.
— Darren Shan, Demon Apocalypse
I've never met a politician who didn't deserve to be tossed into a pit full of Kallin," Beranabus grunts.
— Darren Shan, Demon Apocalypse
Do I believe in demonic possession?My thinking is more aligned with 'demonization' in the context of Christianity & Spirit-filled believers, whereas I am quite certain an 'unbeliever' can possibly become 'possessed' by a demonic spirit('s).
— R. Alan Woods, The Person of The Holy Spirit: To Empower, Equip, and Enable
Hell, right now my only weapons were Obnoxious and Snark, and I intended to use them whenever possible.
— Diana Rowland, Touch of the Demon
Also," Nick added curtly, "I'm sorry about your face."Jamie looked over his shoulder, and touched the demon's mark crawling along his jaw with the back of his hand. "Sorry about saving all our lives by doing something you had to do?""Oh no," Nick said blandly, "I just meant, you know. Generally."Jamie stared at him, shocked, and laughed. It was a real laugh, helpless and sweet, and Mae memorized it in case he died. Jamie by the river at dawn, laughing.
— Sarah Rees Brennan, The Demon's Covenant
You get to me all of the time. Always have. In all the good ways.
— Helen Boswell, Mythology: The Wicked
Sometimes life hands us a mirror and dares us to take a look.
— L.M. Fields
This is wrong. Out of this world wrong.But then again, so am I.
— Helen Boswell, Mythology: The Wicked
Asita had been raised on this knowledge. He knew also that all these planes merged into each other like wet dyed cloths hung too close on the line, the blue bleeding into the red, the red into the saffron yellow. Lokas were apart and together at the same time. Demons could move among humans, and often did. The re-verse, a mortal visiting the demon loka, was much rarer.
— Deepak Chopra, Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment
Asita wasn’t hungry this day, however. There were other ways to keep the prana, or life current, going. If he did visit the demon loka, it would take enormous prana to sustain his body. There would be no air for his lungs to breathe among the demons.He allowed the brilliant Himalayan sun to dry his body as he walked above the tree line. Demons do not literally live on moun-taintops, but Asita had learned special powers that allowed him to penetrate the subtle world. He had to get as far away as possible from human beings to exercise these abilities. The atmosphere was dense around population. In Asita’s eyes a quiet village was a seething cauldron of emotions; every person—except only small infants—was immersed in a fog of confusion, a dense blanket of fears, wishes, memories, fantasy, and longing. This fog was so thick that the mind could barely pierce it.
— Deepak Chopra, Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment
He wished he could show her the memory of the very first timehe’d laid eyes upon her. A random moment, his window to herworld, and yet ithad pierced his excuse for a soul as if it were destiny. As if shewere his destiny. A thousand times he’d looked through the realms,but oneglimpse had forever changed their paths.
— Gwen Hayes, Falling Under
I have been feeling very clearheaded lately and what I want to write about today is the sea. It contains so many colors. Silver at dawn, green at noon, dark blue in the evening. Sometimes it looks almost red. Or it will turn the color of old coins. Right now the shadows of clouds are dragging across it, and patches of sunlight are touching down everywhere. White strings of gulls drag over it like beads.It is my favorite thing, I think, that I have ever seen. Sometimes I catch myself staring at it and forget my duties. It seems big enough to contain everything anyone could ever feel.
— Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See
There's nothing wrong with enjoying looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater,you realize that you've been missing the whole point of the ocean. Staying on the surface all the time is like going to the circus and staring at the outside of the tent.
— Dave Barry
What she really loved was to hang over the edge and watch the bow of the ship slice through the waves. She loved it especially when the waves were high and the ship rose and fell, or when it was snowing and the flakes stung her face.
— Kristin Cashore, Graceling
There was a magic about the sea. People were drawn to it. People wanted to love by it, swim in it, play in it, look at it. It was a living thing that as as unpredictable as a great stage actor: it could be calm and welcoming, opening its arms to embrace it's audience one moment, but then could explode with its stormy tempers, flinging people around, wanting them out, attacking coastlines, breaking down islands. It had a playful side too, as it enjoyed the crowd, tossed the children about, knocked lilos over, tipped over windsurfers, occasionally gave sailors helping hands; all done with a secret little chuckle
— Cecelia Ahern, The Gift
Those who live by the sea can hardly form a single thought of which the sea would not be part.
— Hermann Broch
all my life i have lived and behaved very much like the sandpiper just running down the edges of different countries and continents, looking for something.
— Elizabeth Bishop
I spent uncounted hours sitting at the bow looking at the water and the sky, studying each wave, different from the last, seeing how it caught the light, the air, the wind; watching patterns, the sweep of it all, and letting it take me. The sea.
— Gary Paulsen, Caught by the Sea
But in a way you can say that after leaving the sea, after all those millions of years of living inside of the sea, we took the ocean with us. When a woman makes a baby, she gives it water, inside her body, to grow in. That water inside her body is almost exactly the same as the water of the sea. It is salty, by just the same amount. She makes a little ocean, in her body. And not only this. Our blood and our sweating, they are both salty, almost exactly like the water from the sea is salty. We carry oceans inside of us, in our blood and our sweat. And we are crying the oceans, in our tears.
— Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram
We clear the harbor and the wind catches her sails and my beautiful ship leans over ever so gracefully, and her elegant bow cuts cleanly into the increasing chop of the waves. I take a deep breath and my chest expands and my heart starts thumping so strongly I fear the others might see it beat through the cloth of my jacket. I face the wind and my lips peel back from my teeth in a grin of pure joy.
— L.A. Meyer, Under the Jolly Roger: Being an Account of the Further Nautical Adventures of Jacky Faber
I have seafoam in my veins, I understand the language of waves.
— Le Testament d'Orphée
All matter, including you and I, has rhythmic movement within it and our quest should be to create a proper rhythmic harmony within ourselves…you feel happy when you sit near an ocean because your vibrations try to synchronize with the frequency of the waves.
— Ed Viswanathan, Am I a Hindu?: The Hinduism Primer
I go to the ocean to say goodbye.
— Charlotte Eriksson
‎I have always been fascinated by the ocean, to dip a limb beneath its surface and know that I'm touching eternity, that it goes on forever until it begins here again.
— Lauren DeStefano, Wither
...this beginning motion, this first time when a sail truly filled and the boat took life and knifed across the lake under perfect control, this was so beautiful it stopped my breath...
— Gary Paulsen, Caught by the Sea
Things are never as they seem. A person. A Mark. A statement. They are always deeper than we perceive, like walking in the ocean and suddenly dipping under the surface because the bottom has disappeared beneath your feet. The water appears shallow until you are suddenly flailing around beneath the surface, desperately searching for stable ground once again.
— Kelseyleigh Reber
You are not a drop in the ocean. You are an ocean in a drop.
— Joy N. Hensley, Rites of Passage
The deep roar of the ocean.The break of waves on farther shores that thought can find.The silent thunders of the deep.And from among it, voices calling, and yet not voices, humming trillings, wordlings, and half-articulated songs of thought.Greetings, waves of greetings, sliding back down into the inarticulate, words breaking together.A crash of sorrow on the shores of Earth.Waves of joy on--where? A world indescribably found, indescribably arrived at, indescribably wet, a song of water.A fugue of voices now, clamoring explanations, of a disaster unavertable, a world to be destroyed, a surge of helplessness, a spasm of despair, a dying fall, again the break of words.And then the fling of hope, the finding of a shadow Earth in the implications of enfolded time, submerged dimensions, the pull of parallels, the deep pull, the spin of will, the hurl and split of it, the fight. A new Earth pulled into replacement, the dolphins gone.Then stunningly a single voice, quite clear."This bowl was brought to you by the Campaign to Save the Humans. We bid you farewell."And then the sound of long, heavy, perfectly gray bodies rolling away into an unknown fathomless deep, quietly giggling.
— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
[The waves] move across a faint horizon, the rush of love and the surge of grief, the respite of peace and then fear again, the heart that beats and then lies still, the rise and fall and rise and fall of all of it, the incoming and the outgoing, the infinite procession of life. And the ocean wraps the earth, a reminder. The mysteries come forward in waves.
— Susan Casey, The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean
A full moon sprinkled the black ocean with diamonds, and she could imagine fairies dancing in the silver foam that laced the huge, dark waves.
— Patricia Hagan, Ocean of Dreams
I believed I could identify the scent of the sky as I stood there, a blue menthol fragrance similar to the scent of seawater that sprayed into my face when I first dove into the ocean. That initial scent was much more subtle than the ocean's heavy, fishy aroma; it was a whiff of salt and mint, just as I approached the water on a dive, that warned me that a more powerful scent would soon enter my nose. It was the scent I dreamed in. And it was the scent of that spring sky as I stood in my yard.
— Anne Spollen, The Shape of Water
I ain’t afraid to drown if that means I’m deep up in your ocean.
— Chris Brown
I could be blindfolded and dropped into the deepest ocean and I would know where to find you. I could be buried a hundred miles underground and I would know where you are.
— Neil Gaiman, American Gods
Doesn't it seem to you," asked Madame Bovary, "that the mind moves more freely in the presence of that boundless expanse, that the sight of it elevates the soul and gives rise to thoughts of the infinite and the ideal?
— Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
I couldn't imagine living in a state that didn't reach the ocean. It was a giant reset button. You could go to the edge of the land and see infinity and feel renewed.
— Avery Sawyer, Notes to Self
I wish I could describe the feeling of being at sea, the anguish, frustration, and fear, the beauty that accompanies threatening spectacles, the spiritual communion with creatures in whose domain I sail. There is a magnificent intensity in life that comes when we are not in control but are only reacting, living, surviving. I am not a religious man per se. My own cosmology is convoluted and not in line with any particular church or philosphy. But for me, to go to sea is to glimpse the face of God. At sea i am reminded of my insignificance-- of all men's insignificance. It is a wonderful feeling to be so humbled.
— Steve Callahan
Do you ever think about the ocean?" Nick asked me."What about it?" I said."Like what could live down there? Like how there's as much life down there as up here? Maybe more?""God Lives Underwater," said someone. "That's the name of a band. They're awesome.""But seriously," Nick said, "it's like an alternate universe. Right here on our own planet.""Right here, a hundred feet from us," said Sheila."Right here in my hair," said one of the girls who had swum, pulling some sea gunk out of her wet hair.Everyone laughed quietly at that. Nick drank his beer. The wood crackled as it burned. We all stared at the black ocean.
— Blake Nelson, They Came From Below
An ocean which thinks there is nothing to learn from a lake is not a wise ocean!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
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, Les Misérables
We all have an edge. We all are floating our psyche on top with a great ocean underneath.
— Brad Dourif
When the ship approached the equator, I stopped going out on deck in the daytime. The sun burned like a flame. The days had shortened and night came swiftly. One moment it was light, the next it was dark. The sun did not set but fell into the water like a meteor. Late in the evening, when I went out briefly, a hot wind slapped my face. From the ocean came a roar of passions that seemed to have broken through all barriers:'We mus procreate and multiply! We must exhaust all the powers of lust!' The waves glowed like lava, and I imagined I could see multitudes of living beings - algae, whales, sea monsters - reveling in an orgy, from the surface to the bottom of the sea. Immortality was the law here. The whole planet raged with animation. At times, I heard my name in the clamor: the spirit of the abyss calling me to join them in their nocturnal dance. ("Hanka")
— Isaac Bashevis Singer, American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940's Until Now
The children had had an argument once about whether there was more grass in the world or more sand, and Roger said that of course there must be more sand because of under the sea; in every ocean all over the world there would be sand, if you looked deep down. But there could be grass too, argued Deborah, a waving grass, a grass that nobody had ever seen, and the colour of that ocean grass would be darker than any grass on the surface of the world, in fields or prairies or people's gardens in America. It would be taller than tress and it would move like corn in the wind. ("The Pool
— Daphne du Maurier, Echoes from the Macabre: Selected Stories
My room was in one of those turrets and at night I could hear the sea and the faint rustle of eelgrass in the soft wind. The weather was perfect that summer. No storms. Blue skies and just the right amount of wind every day. The sailors were in heaven.
— Katherine Hall Page
Shearwater sighed, like a whale in the night.
— Aldous Huxley, Antic Hay
The fireworks went on for nearly half an hour, great pulsing strobes, fiery dandelions and starbursts of light brightening both sky and water. It was hard to tell which was reality and which was reflection, as if there were two displays, above and below, going on simultaneously—one in space-time, mused Max, and the other in time-space.
— Sol Luckman, Snooze: A Story of Awakening
The smell of the sea, of kelp and fish and bitter moving water, rose stronger in my nostrils. It flooded my consciousness like an ancestral memory. The swells rose sluggishly and fell away, casting up dismal gleams between the boards of the pier. And the whole pier rose and fell in stiff and creaking mimicry, dancing its long slow dance of dissolution. I reached the end and saw no one, heard nothing but my footsteps and the creak of the beams, the slap of waves on the pilings. It was a fifteen-foot drop to the dim water. The nearest land ahead of me was Hawaii.
— Ross Macdonald, The Drowning Pool
And finally the two of them plunged into the dark sea, a sea like a pack of wolves, and they dove around the boat trying to find young Reiter's body, with no success, until they had to come up for air, and before they dove again, they asked the men on the boat whether the brat had surfaced. And then, under the weight of the negative response, they disappeared once more among the dark waves like forest beasts and one of the men who hadn't been in before joined them, and it was he who some fifteen feet down spotted the body of young Reiter floating like uprooted seaweed, upward, a brilliant white in the underwater space, and it was he who grabbed the body under the arms and brought him up, and also he who made the young Reiter vomit all the water he had swallowed.
— Roberto Bolaño, 2666
Increasingly, we will be faced with a choice: whether to keep the oceans for wild fish or farmed fish. Farming domesticated species in close proximity with wild fish will mean that domesticated fish always win. Nobody in the world of policy appears to be asking what is best for society, wild fish or farmed fish. And what sort of farmed fish, anyway? Were this question to be asked, and answered honestly, we might find that our interests lay in prioritizing wild fish and making their ecosystems more productive by leaving them alone enough of the time.
— Charles Clover, The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat
I saw thousands of them. A sea of the dead that roared like an ocean! You would have heard them screaming toward you. It would have taken days to steer them away. Killing them? I don't think killing them would have been possible.
— Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead, Vol. 27: The Whisperer War
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever i find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet... I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
— Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale
DeepYou, you’re deep waterAnd I’m scared because I can’t defaulterI don’t know how to swim, So, if I jump in,I’ll be consumed by your waves.I’ll try to keep my head above the rage.But you’ll just swallow up my whole.My entire being will be controlled.If I were to dive,I could no longer thrive.You would consume my being;Leaving me breathless, not breathing.Is there a medium I can prescribe?That would allow me to disguiseThe fear I gather in my bones. I just can’t swim in the water of morone. Do you possess a life supportTo hold me up? My last resort.If I jump in, I’ll drown in bends. Your love is suffocating, nothing can amend.November 20, 2011
— Rachel Nicole Wagner, Yesterday's Coffee
Whenever a river reaches the ocean, it waits to go back..
— Will Advise
A river starts by longing for the ocean...
— Will Advise
The professor pointed out how he could drop a keel and a propeller into the water, in case he came down at sea, and after cutting the gas bag loose he'd have a seaworthy boat. He had everything on board for survival at sea, including fancy fishing gear, flares and weather balloons for distress signals, and both shortwave radio equipment and a low-frequency system for round-the-world communications."Boy! This is somethin' right out of Jules Verne...only better, maybe," said Homer.You are right, Mr. Snodgrass," said the professor. "It is ze only way to travel. You don't go so fast, but it beats swimming! Yes? And we have everysing for safety and comfort at sea, if we have to come down. Ze only thing we have to worry about is piranhas. Oh, zey are terrible! Zey will eat everysing in sight!""Piranhas?" Homer gasped. "I thought they were only found in South American Rivers?""Oh?" said the professor. "Do ze piranhas know zat, Mr. Snodgrass?
— Bertrand R. Brinley, The Big Chunk of Ice: The Last Known Adventure of the Mad Scientists' Club
Reluctant to return to the empty rooms of Bluebell Cottage, Olivia ate fish and chips on the harbor wall, dangling her legs over the side just like she used to as a little girl, even though it made her mam anxious.The breeze nipped at the back of her neck and whipped up a fine sea spray that settled on her hands, leaving sparkling salt crystals as it dried. Fairy dust, she used to call it. She breathed in the fresh air and absorbed the view: tangerine sky and dove-gray sea, ripples on the surface of both, like dragon scales. She savored the sharp tang of vinegar on her tongue, letting her thoughts wander as the sun slowly melted into the sea, turning it to liquid gold.
— Hazel Gaynor, The Cottingley Secret
The ocean will swallow you whole and burp you out and not notice you were even there.
— Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything
Just outside Dover we stopped at an inn and I snatched a taste of dainty fried fish named smelts, and some herrings served with their tails in their mouths. Afterwards, me and Mr Loveday went out to take a view of the ocean. The wind was blowing so strong it whistled through my teeth and the sea was horrible; a vast plain of water ceaselessly moiling like a simmering pot. At last my head cold had cleared enough to taste the sea on my tongue; it had a strange salted vegetable tang.
— Martine Bailey, An Appetite for Violets
We'd be trying to touch the sky from the bottom of the ocean. I realize that if we boosted one another, maybe we'd get a little closer.
— Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray
We all have an innate feeling of being separate from the world, peering out at life from behind our own little self. But how can we truly be separate from the same world that created us? You can no more disconnect from the universe and it's inhabitants than a wave can extricate itself from the ocean.
— Dan Harris, 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works
The sea was like another member of the household, a recalcitrant child at times, a soothing aunt at others. She crooned them awake; she crooned them to sleep. Everywhere, there was the smell of salt.
— Hala Alyan, Salt Houses
Wild waves rise and fall when they arrive And that’s what makes the calm sea alive
— Munia Khan
The sea, as much as the light, gives this curve of coast it's flavor. The light takes it's color from the sea, sometimes seems to be emerging from it. And the sea here is ever-present. On clear days it coats the air with a transparent tinge of palest blue that salts and sharpens every detail.
— James D. Houston, Where Light Takes Its Color from the Sea: A California Notebook
The ocean will always betray me. No matter how beautiful it is.
— K.B. Ezzell, Elysium
My alar is like the ocean in storm. (Devi)
— Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear
Life is like a ocean, jump right on.
— Cliff Hannold
Life is like an ocean, jump right on.
— Cliff Hannold
Life is like an ocean, jump right in.
— Cliff Hannold
I think of the horizon at midnight, the sky and sea blurring together.
— Sophie Hardcastle, Breathing Under Water
The ocean stands for God, the sole substance, and individual beings are like waves - which are modes of the sea. Each wave has its own shape that it holds for a certain time, but the wave is not separate from the sea and cannot be conceived to exist independently of it. Of course, this is only a metaphor; unlike an infinite God, an ocean has boundaries, and moreover the image of the sea represents God only in the attributes of extension. But maybe we can also imagine the mind of God - that is to say, the infinite totality of thinking - as like the sea, and the thoughts of finite beings as like waves that arise and then pass away.
— Clare Carlisle
June would always be Charlotte's favorite month on Quinnipeague. She loved the frothy roil of the sea as it recovered from a day of rain, and in those early mornings, before the fog lifted and sun warmed the island, there was nothing, nothing better than a wood fire, wool socks, and hot chocolate made from scratch.
— Barbara Delinsky, Sweet Salt Air
The ocean here is weird. It's the wrong kind of blue.
— Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star
I will cross the border
—  set across the ocean. I will break down walls
Farther out beyond the reef, where the coral gives way to the true deep, at a certain time of day a tribe of flat silver fish gather in their thousands. To be there is to be surrounded by living shards of light. At a secret signal, all is chaos, a thousand mirrors shattering about him. Then the school speeds to sea and the boy is left in sedate water, a tug and pull of the body as comfortable as sitting in his father’s outspread sarong being sung to sleep.
— Nayomi Munaweera, Island of a Thousand Mirrors
Something grey surged out of the ship’s wake, and Mouana reached for her pistol, then swore softly as she saw it was only a porpoise. The animals were playing in the engine wash, spinning in the air as they arced through the crashing foam. They were not albino, nor rotten, nor tentacled—just porpoises. The sight of the things brought hope back again; whatever mess they were in, at least they weren’t in Ocean.
— Nate Crowley, Grand Amazon
Let only the young come, Says the sea. Let them kiss my face And hear me. I am the last word And I tell Where storms and stars come from.
— Carl Sandburg, Poetry for Young People: Carl Sandburg
...I lived for those long casual walks down the beach and the sight of her small footprints in the glistening wet sand...
— Pat Conroy, The Lords of Discipline
The ocean is a rolling field of the bluest crop I've ever seen, filling our view two days after escaping the guards. The sea touches the horizon, swaying and moving like a living, breathing being beneath a lid of white clouds and sunshine. It's possibly the most beautiful thing in the world.
— Erin Summerill, Ever the Hunted