Quotes from A Night to Remember

Walter Lord ·  208 pages

Rating: (14.3K votes)


“Overriding everything else, the Titanic also marked the end of a general feeling of confidence.”
― Walter Lord, quote from A Night to Remember


“The night was a magnificent confirmation of "women and children first," yet somehow the loss rate was higher for Third Class children than First Class men.”
― Walter Lord, quote from A Night to Remember


“The Titanic woke them up. Never again would they be quite so sure of themselves. In technology especially, the disaster was a terrible blow. Here was the "unsinkable ship" -- perhaps man's greatest engineering achievement -- going down the first time it sailed.

But it went beyond that. If this supreme achievement was so terribly fragile, what about everything else? If wealth mean so little on this cold April night, did it mean so much the rest of the year?”
― Walter Lord, quote from A Night to Remember


“The clock in the wireless shack said 12:45 A.M. when the Titanic sent the first SOS call in history.”
― Walter Lord, quote from A Night to Remember


“This was the era when gentlemen formally offered their services to "unprotected ladies" at the start of an Atlantic voyage.”
― Walter Lord, quote from A Night to Remember



“Before the Titanic, all was quiet. Afterward all was tumult. That is why, to anybody who lived at the time, the Titanic more than any other single event marks the end of the old days, and the beginning of a new, uneasy era.”
― Walter Lord, quote from A Night to Remember


“Robertson called his ship the Titan; the White Star Line called its ship the Titanic. This is the story of her last night.”
― Walter Lord, quote from A Night to Remember


“Suddenly he was amazed to see a lifeboat floating near the starboard side. He phoned the bridge—did they know there was a boat afloat? An incredulous voice asked who he was. Rowe explained, and the bridge then realized he had been overlooked. They told him to come to the bridge right away and bring some rockets with him.”
― Walter Lord, quote from A Night to Remember


“Try and get off with Major Butt”
― Walter Lord, quote from A Night to Remember


“Mrs. George Widener was met not by automobile but by a special train—consisting of a private Pullman, another car for ballast, and a locomotive.”
― Walter Lord, quote from A Night to Remember



“It is a rash man indeed who would set himself up as final arbiter on all that happened the incredible night the Titanic went down.”
― Walter Lord, quote from A Night to Remember


“If wealth meant so little on this cold April night, did it mean so much the rest of the year?”
― Walter Lord, quote from A Night to Remember


“Possession of the ice didn’t remain a Third Class monopoly for long.”
― Walter Lord, quote from A Night to Remember


“But legends are part of great events, and if they help keep alive the memory of gallant self-sacrifice, they serve their purpose.”
― Walter Lord, quote from A Night to Remember


“Seen and unseen, the great and the unknown tumbled together in a writhing heap as the bow plunged deeper and the stern rose higher.”
― Walter Lord, quote from A Night to Remember



About the author

Walter Lord
Born place: in Baltimore, Maryland, The United States
Born date October 8, 1917
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Just as, when a cow to be slaughtered is led to the shambles, whenever she lifts a leg she will be closer to slaughter, closer to death; even so, brahmins, is human life like cattle doomed to slaughter; it is short, limited, and brief. It is full of suffering, full of tribulation. This one should wisely understand. One should do good and live a pure life; for none who is born can escape death.”
― Bhikkhu Bodhi, quote from In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon


“agents shall be recruited from orphans. They shall be trained in the following techniques: interpretation of signs and marks, palmistry and similar techniques of interpreting body marks, magic and illusions, the duties of the ashramas, the stages of life, and the science of omens and augury. Alternatively, they can be trained in physiology and sociology, the art of men and society.”
― Tarquin Hall, quote from The Case of the Missing Servant


“To discourage future dark moments, I believe we must nourish the minds of our young with learning that creates understanding between ethnic and religious groups.”
― Jean Sasson, quote from Growing Up Bin Laden: Osama's Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World


“Ignorance has never been the problem. The problem was and continues to be unexamined confidence in western civilization and the unwarranted certainty of Christianity. And arrogance. Perhaps it is unfair to judge the past by the present, but it is also necessary.

If nothing else, an examination of the past—and of the present, for that matter—can be instructive. It shows us that there is little shelter and little gain for Native peoples in doing nothing. So long as we possess one element of sovereignty, so long as we possess one parcel of land, North America will come for us, and the question we have to face is how badly we wish to continue to pursue the concepts of sovereignty and self-determination. How important is it for us to maintain protected communal homelands? Are our traditions and languages worth the cost of carrying on the fight? Certainly the easier and more expedient option is simply to step away from who we are and who we wish to be, sell what we have for cash, and sink into the stewpot of North America.

With the rest of the bones.

No matter how you frame Native history, the one inescapable constant is that Native people in North America have lost much. We’ve given away a great deal, we’ve had a great deal taken from us, and, if we are not careful, we will continue to lose parts of ourselves—as Indians, as Cree, as Blackfoot, as Navajo, as Inuit—with each generation. But this need not happen. Native cultures aren’t static. They’re dynamic, adaptive, and flexible, and for many of us, the modern variations of older tribal traditions continue to provide order, satisfaction, identity, and value in our lives. More than that, in the five hundred years of European occupation, Native cultures have already proven themselves to be remarkably tenacious and resilient.

Okay.

That was heroic and uncomfortably inspirational, wasn’t it? Poignant, even. You can almost hear the trumpets and the violins. And that kind of romance is not what we need. It serves no one, and the cost to maintain it is too high.

So, let’s agree that Indians are not special. We’re not … mystical. I’m fine with that. Yes, a great many Native people have a long-standing relationship with the natural world. But that relationship is equally available to non-Natives, should they choose to embrace it. The fact of Native existence is that we live modern lives informed by traditional values and contemporary realities and that we wish to live those lives on our terms.”
― Thomas King, quote from The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America


“„Silas, it's not even five.” I moaned.
„Rule numero uno this summer, it's five o'clock somewhere.”
― Adriane Leigh, quote from The Mourning After


Interesting books

Dark Companion
(3.8K)
Dark Companion
by Marta Acosta
Deep Blue Eternity
(2K)
Deep Blue Eternity
by Natasha Boyd
Everything You and I Could Have Been If We Weren't You and I
(3.5K)
Everything You and I...
by Albert Espinosa
All Our Names
(3.8K)
All Our Names
by Dinaw Mengestu
Rattlesnake
(2K)
Rattlesnake
by Kim Fielding
The Line
(16.4K)
The Line
by J.D. Horn

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.