Quotes from We, the Drowned

“Two drowning people can't save each other. All they can do is drag each other down.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“Life had taught him about something far more complicated than justice. Its name was balance.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“You died in the end, but you fought first.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“We thought we knew everything about him. But that's not how life is. When all's said and done, we can never truly know one another.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“That's the strange thing about a good story. No pleasure if you can't share it.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“Is there anything more heartbreaking than drowning in sight of land? Is there a single one of us who hasn't at least once felt haunted by the fear of slipping away within sight of a safe haven?”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“Now I remembered a captain's honor and his only duty: to bring his crew back alive.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“Hope can be like a plant that sprouts and grows and keeps people alive. But it can also be a wound that refuses to heal.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“Everyone in our town has a story--but it's not the one he tells himself. Its author has a thousand eyes, a thousand ears, and five hundred pens that never stop scribbling.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“Many years ago there lived a man called Laurids Madsen who went up to heaven and came down again thanks to his boots.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“That's how it is, he told himself. If you dread something enough, even your worst fears coming true brings comfort.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“Even terror needs a yardstick, and surely the yardstick for the unknown is the known?”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“When it came to choosing between education and religion, Albert said, he'd choose education every time. The school represented young people and the future - and the church didn't. If the school in Vestergade was bigger than the church, so much the better. Any town that believed in the future should take note.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“Without discussing it with his mother, Anton went up to his teacher, Miss Katballe, and informed her that after seven years he was now quitting school. It was the best day of her life, she replied. With unexpected politeness he bowed, thanked her, and said, likewise.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“There shall come a day when all the women in the world will lie in the gutter screaming for cock,' he intoned. 'But not an inch shall they be given!'
'Am I to understand,' Knud Erik asked, 'that nobody wanted to screw you?”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“Freedom had a thousand faces. But so did crime. The thought of what a man might do made me dizzy.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“But that's how it is on a sailing ship, and in this respect its journey parallels that of life: simply knowing where you want to go isn't enough, because life is a windblown voyage, consisting mainly of the detours imposed by alternating calm and storm.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“We don't sail because the sea is there. We sail because there's a harbour. We don't start by heading for distant shores. We seek protection first.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“No, he hadn't known anything about children, but now he'd learned something: a child's mind is open to everything.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“We were familiar with the line that separates grief from madness, and we know that sometimes the only way to stay on the right side of it is to scream.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“With no other choices open to us, we'd turned our gaze seaward. The oceans were our America: they reached farther than any prairie, untamed as on the first day of creation. Nobody owned them.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“Contrary to what most people think, weeping isn't an uncontrollable emotion that spills into tears. It's the opposite, a channel for feelings, a way to divert them in a healthy direction.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“At times he agreed with Anton: they were united by their silence. If they began articulating their thoughts, they'd feed one another's insanity and everything would fall apart.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“As he passed through the dining room, he stopped and took a white daisy from the bouqet his housekeeper had placed in the middle of the table..and put the daisy in the buttonhole of his summer jacket. Then he opened the front door and walked down the steps to Prinsegade, filled with the blind triumph that people sometimes experience when they've conquered their own better judgment.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“Take the sailor," he said. "he signs on to a new ship. He's surrounded by nothing but strangers. Not only do they come from other towns and parts of his own country, but often from completely different nations. He has to learn to work with them. His vocabulary's broadened, he learns new words and grammar, and he comes across new ways of thinking. he turns into a different man, unlike the one who spends his life plowing the same old furrow. These are the men the world needs, not nationalists and warmongers.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“Human beings are afflicted by a need to judge.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“War was like sailing. You could learn about clouds, wind direction, and currents, but the sea remained forever unpredictable. All you could do was adapt to it and try to return home alive.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“...the miller's hefty wife, Madam Weber, already armed with a pitchfork, insisted on joining the fight, and because she appeared more intimidating than most of us men, we instantly welcomed her to our bloodthirsty ranks.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

“But he didnt want to be thought of as a fool. To walk around the town fully dressed and yet appear naked to the world was a shame he couldn't bear.”
― Carsten Jensen, quote from We, the Drowned

About the author

Popular quotes

“Four years ago, when I started writing this book, my hypothesis was mostly based on a hunch. I had been doing some research on university campuses and had begun to notice that many students I was meeting were preoccupied with the inroads private corporations were making into their public schools. They were angry that ads were creeping into cafeterias, common rooms, even washrooms; that their schools were diving into exclusive distribution deals with soft-drink companies and computer manufacturers, and that academic studies were starting to look more and more like market research.”
― Naomi Klein, quote from No Logo

“Okay, okay . . . where do you hear it coming from?”
“Around here somewhere.”
“Always in this spot?”
“No. Not always. You are going to think I am even more insane, but I swear it is following me around.”
“Maybe it is my new powers. The power to drive you mad.” She wriggled her fingers at him theatrically as if she were casting a curse on him.
“You already drive me mad,” he teased, dragging her up against him and nibbling her neck with a playful growling. “Ah hell,” he broke off. “I really am going mad. I cannot believe you cannot hear that. It is like a metronome set to some ridiculously fast speed.”
He turned and walked into the living room, looking around at every shelf.
“The last person to own this place probably had a thing for music and left it running. Listen. Can you hear that?”
“No,” she said thoughtfully, “but I can hear you hearing it if I concentrate on your thoughts. What in the world . . . ?”
Gideon turned, then turned again, concentrating on the rapid sound, following it until it led him right up to his wife.
“It is you!” he said. “No wonder it is following me around. Are you wearing a watch?” He grabbed her wrist and she rolled her eyes.
“A Demon wearing a watch? Now I have heard everything.”
Suddenly Gideon went very, very still, the cold wash of chills that flooded through him so strong that she shivered with the overflow of sensation. He abruptly dropped to his knees and framed her hips with his hands.
“Oh, Legna,” he whispered, “I am such an idiot. It is a baby. It is our baby. I am hearing it’s heartbeat!”
“What?” she asked, her shock so powerful she could barely speak. “I am with child?”
“Yes. Yes, sweet, you most certainly are. A little over a month. Legna, you conceived, probably the first time we made love. My beautiful, fertile, gorgeous wife.”
Gideon kissed her belly through her dress, stood up, and caught her up against him until she squeaked with the force of his hug. Legna went past shock and entered unbelievable joy. She laughed, not caring how tight he held her, feeling his joy on a thousand different levels.
“I never thought I would know this feeling,” he said hoarsely. “Even when we were getting married, I never thought . . . It did not even enter my mind!” Gideon set her down on her feet, putting her at arm’s length as he scanned her thoroughly from head to toe. “I cannot understand why I did not become aware of this sooner. The chemical changes, the hormone levels alone . . .”
“Never mind. We know now,” she said, throwing herself back up against him and hugging him tightly. “Come, we have to tell Noah . . . and Hannah! Oh, and Bella! And Jacob, of course. And Elijah. And we should inform Siena—”
She was still rattling off names as she teleported them to the King’s castle.”
― Jacquelyn Frank, quote from Gideon

“We, the Sworn Sisterhood, do solemnly vow to take back Acadia from those who are responsible for the scourge of the dragon and the tempests. We will fight them with our hands and our weapons. We will fight them with the power of our conviction. We will face the enemy without fear. We will take the enemy down and bring the enemy to justice and there is nothing that can stand in our way.”
― Mercedes Lackey, quote from One Good Knight

“I have a story to tell you. It has many beginnings, and perhaps one ending. Perhaps not. Beginnings and endings are contingent things anyway; inventions, devices. Where does any story really begin? There is always context, always an encompassingly greater epic, always something before the described events, unless we are to start every story with “BANG! Expand! Sssss…,” then itemize the whole subsequent history of the universe before settling down, at last, to the particular tale in question. Similarly, no ending is final, unless it is the end of all things…”
― Iain M. Banks, quote from The Algebraist

“Decades of the seniority rule had conferred influence in the Senate not on men who broke new ground but on men who were careful not to.”
― Robert A. Caro, quote from Master of the Senate

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