Quotes from Breath

“It’s how I fill the time when nothing’s happening. Thinking too much, flirting with melancholy.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“It's funny, but you never really think much about breathing. Until it's all you ever think about.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“I liked books - the respite and privacy of them - books about plants and the formation of ice and the business of world wars. Whenever I sank into them I felt free.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“We rise to a challenge and set a course. We take a decision. You put your mind to something. Just deciding to do it gets you halfway there. Daring to try. ”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“Being afreaid proves you're alive and awake.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“Wherever I went I felt like the last person awake in a room full of sleepers”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“I came home at dusk with my ears ringing from the quiet.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“I was in my thirties before I learnt that I too would prefer not to see what I could no longer have”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“Surviving is the strongest memory I have; the sense of having walked on water.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“Everyone will tell you your goal is impossible, pointless, stupid, wasteful. So you hang tough. You back yourslef and only yourself. ”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“Inside those waves our voices bounced back at us, deeper and larger for all the noise, like the voices of men. ”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“That was the simple objective, being airborne, up longer, up higher, more casually & with more fuck off elegance than anyone else in the world. I never understood the rules or the science of it but I recognized the single-mindedness it took to match risk with nerve come what may. Some endeavours require a kind of egotism, a near autistic narrowness. Everything conspires against you – the habits of physics, the impulse to flee - & you’re weighed down by every dollop of commonsense dished up. Everyone will tell you your goal is impossible, pointless, stupid, wasteful so you hang tough. You back yourself & only yourself. This idiot resolve is all you have.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“And somehow, somewhere along the track, I went numb. I couldn’t say what it was & didn’t dare try. How do you explain the sense of being made to feel improper ? I withdrew into a watchful rectitude, anxious to please, risking nothing. I followed the outline of my life, carefully rehearsing form without conviction, like a bishop who can’t see that his faith has become an act.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“That eye... was like a fuckin hole in the universe”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“I still judge every joyous moment, every victory and revelation against those few seconds of living
”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“I have never been a violent man. Just a little creepy, it seems.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“And though I've lived to be an old man with my very own share of happiness for all the mess I made, I still judge every joyous moment, every victory and revelation against those few seconds of living.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“It's how I fill the time when nothing's happening, thinking too much, flirting with melancholy”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“They probably don’t understand this, but it’s important for me to show them that their father is a man who dances – who saves lives and carries the wounded, yes, but who also does something completely pointless and beautiful, and in this at least he should need no explanation.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“...jedoch spürt man auf ziemlich perverse Art, dass man dem Leben an sich ausgeliefert ist, weil es einen zwingt, zu atmen und zu atmen und zu atmen in einer endlosen Kapitulation vor der biologischen Routine, und dass das menschliche Streben nach Kontrolle ebenso viel mit der Machtergreifung über den eigenen Körper zu tun hat wie mit der Ausübung von Macht über andere.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“I will always remember my first wave this morning. The smells of paraffin wax and brine and peppy scrub. The way the swell rose beneath me like a body drawing to air. How the wave drew me forward and I sprang to my feet, skating with the wind of momentum in my ears. I leant across the wall of upstanding water and the board came with me as though it was part of my body and mind. The blur of spray. The billion shards of light. I remember the solitary watching figure on the beach and the flash of Loonies's smile as I flew by; I was intoxicated. And though I've lived to be an old man with my own share of happiness for all the mess I made, I still judge every joyous moment, every victory and revelation against those few seconds of living.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

“I couldn't take my eyes from those plumes of spray, the churning shards of light. Was this what the old man was afraid of? I tried to think of poor dead Snowy Muir but death was hard to imagine when you had these blokes dancing themselves across the bay with smiles on their faces and sun in their hair. I couldn't have put words to it as a boy, but later I understood what seized my imagination that day. How strange it was to see men do something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant, as though nobody saw or cared.”
― Tim Winton, quote from Breath

Video

About the author

Popular quotes

“I have felt that some sort of awful shame is attached to my name and that I have somehow brought this shame along from somewhere I have never been, and that I have carried this sin as my sin even though I have never committed it; this sin pursues me all my life, which life is undoubtedly not my own even thought I live it , I suffer from it die of it.”
― Imre Kertész, quote from Kaddish for an Unborn Child

“A noted writer in The Washington Post recently described the cause of compassion for farm animals as “the moral calling of our time.”
― Gene Baur, quote from Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food

“There are not many secure hospitals that can boast someone who thought he was Napoleon, but St. Cerebellum’s could field three—not to mention a handful of serial killers whose names inexplicably yet conveniently rhymed with their crimes. Notorious cannibal “Peter the Eater” was incarcerated here, as were “Sasha the Slasher” and “Mr. Browner the Serial Drowner.” But the undisputed king of rhyme-inspired serial murder was Isle of Man resident Maximilian Marx, who went under the uniquely tongue-twisting epithet “Mad Max Marx, the Masked Manxman Axman.” Deirdre Blott tried to top Max’s clear superiority by changing her name so as to become “Nutty Nora Newsome, the Knife-Wielding Weird Widow from Waddersdon,” but no one was impressed, and she was ostracized by the other patients for being such a terrible show-off.”
― Jasper Fforde, quote from The Fourth Bear

“..but it's one of the reflections of our times. Young minds today are dulled by television and other visual sensations. When reading was one of the few pleasures available, we could recite whole passages to eachother.”
― Gloria Naylor, quote from Linden Hills

“This is a fool’s errand,” Mace grumbled.
“You think all of my errands are foolish, Lazarus. I’m not impressed.”
― Erika Johansen, quote from The Invasion of the Tearling

Interesting books

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.