Ballast Quotes

“Take me for a lesson and a cheap one at that. I’m named for the secret, vital core of a ship. Ballast is the weight down in the deep of you that keeps a vessel upright in dark water.
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Oh, the cargo you carry will do it for a while, or even the heft of a crew, mates and mettles, if you love them enough. But a ship’s not a ship till she’s got ballast of her own. Down in the belly, a big massy mess of rope and wood and hardtack and love letters and harpoons and old lemons. Anything that ever fascinated the ship, made it sail true, patched it or broke it, anything the ship loved or longed for, anything it could use. Bo’sun gets in a fistfight with a deckhand over a missing cannonball and they bloody each other up some, but that ball’s just circled down into the baby ballast. Some’ll tell you a ship’s not born till she gets a name or has a bottle of wanderwhiskey broke over her bow, but it’s not so. Without ballast, she’s just wood.
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It all just sort of sinks down and jumbles up together into something hot and heavy inside you, and the weight of everything you ever wanted in the world will keep you steady even when the worst winds blow.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two

“Diejenigen, die nicht darum wissen, wie es ist, mit emotionalem Ballast durchs leben zu gehen, werden nie die Drangsal der Welt zur Gänze verstehen.
Doch wer nie lernen musste, mit diesen Lasten durchs Leben zu schreiten, wird auch nie gänzlich dessen Schönheit begreifen.”
― Dahi Tamara Koch, Im Ereignishorizont: Gedichte

“Es gibt keine schlechten Erlebnisse. Es gibt nur Erfahrungen. Und Möglichkeiten, zu lernen.”
― Dahi Tamara Koch, Im Ereignishorizont: Gedichte

“Jacob stood up slowly and turned towards the window. He felt his heart pumping like a piston, his lungs like little ballast tanks of their own. Every tiny movement was magnified, every sound amplified. The sweat dripped from his hands, forming another sea upon the floor.”
― Dean F. Wilson, Lifemaker