Waterways Quotes

“What is the matter with these people, these people who won't stop fighting, won't stop hurting each other long enough to see that a body is a thing of beauty, is a miracle of rivers and oceans and islands and continents contained within itself? That the brain is divided into two hemispheres, each symmetrical, each perfect, each with its own system of waterways. These people of war should be shown an x-ray of an intraparenchymal hemorrhage, of a hemorrhage in an eighteen-year-old girl's brain, a girl named Ivy. Take a look at that, people of war. See, you should not hurt each other, and this is why. Without you ever even trying, this is what can happen to your body, your beautiful body, and your brain, your beautiful symmetrical brain, and your heart, and your soul.”
― Alison McGhee, All Rivers Flow to the Sea

“Canals are made of flat water, and flat water is difficult stuff to get hold of. It is expensive. You use locks to keep it flat when you go up hills. Sometimes, you have to take the water under hills in tunnels in order to preserve its flatness. Canals were not cheap to build.”
― Ian Marchant, Parallel Lines: Or, Journeys on the Railway of Dreams

“Lac Sainte-Claire is itself a creature of the wild, a world where the synthetic and the organic commingle. At this early hour, it looks like a sheet of quicksilver being shaken by invisible hands. Then, as morning brings heat and light, plastic objects, immersed steel structures, and an oily sheen become visible on its surface. Large ships advance in cavernous silence, waterfowl rise above the horizon.”
― Catherine Leroux, The Future