Rowing Quotes

“Pain? Yes, of course. Racing without pain is not racing. But the pleasure of being ahead outweighed the pain a million times over. To hell with the pain. What's six minutes of pain compared to the pain they're going to feel for the next six months or six decades. You never forget your wins and losses in this sport. YOU NEVER FORGET.”
― Brad Alan Lewis, Assault on Lake Casitas

“How often have I watched, and longed to imitate when I should be free to live as I chose, a rower who had slipped his oars and lay flat on his back in the bottom of the boat, letting it drift with the current, seeing nothing but the sky gliding slowly by above him, his face aglow with a foretaste of happiness and peace!”
― Marcel Proust, Du côté de chez Swann

“As I've gotten older, I realize I'm certain of only two things. Days that begin with rowing on a lake are better than days that do not. Second, a man's character is his fate. And as a student of history, I find this hard to refute. For most of us our stories can be written long before we die. There are exceptions among the great men of history, but they are rare..”
― William Hundert - The Emperors Club

“But the greatest paradox of the sport has to do with the psychological makeup of the people who pull the oars. Great oarsmen and oarswomen are necessarily made of conflicting stuff—of oil and water, fire and earth. On the one hand, they must possess enormous self-confidence, strong egos, and titanic willpower. They must be almost immune to frustration. Nobody who does not believe deeply in himself or herself—in his or her ability to endure hardship and to prevail over adversity—is likely even to attempt something as audacious as competitive rowing at the highest levels. The sport offers so many opportunities for suffering and so few opportunities for glory that only the most tenaciously self-reliant and self-motivated are likely to succeed at it. And yet, at the same time—and this is key—no other sport demands and rewards the complete abandonment of the self the way that rowing does. Great crews may have men or women of exceptional talent or strength; they may have outstanding coxswains or stroke oars or bowmen; but they have no stars. The team effort—the perfectly synchronized flow of muscle, oars, boat, and water; the single, whole, unified, and beautiful symphony that a crew in motion becomes—is all that matters. Not the individual, not the self.”
― Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

“I stopped rowing for a moment to glug down some water, but it was warm, tasted of plastic, and failed to refresh. I yearned for an ice-cold drink—preferably one with bubbles and alcohol in it.”
― Roz Savage, Stop Drifting, Start Rowing: One Woman's Search for Happiness and Meaning Alone on the Pacific

“She seemed to see a flash of bright sunlight on dark green water, fragmented into brilliant shards by the splashing rise and fall of oars.”
― J.K. Rowling

“I have never heard anyone profess indifference to a boat race. Why should you row a boat race? Why endure long months of pain in preparation of a fierce half hour, or even six minutes, that will leave you all but dead? Does anyone ask the question? Is there anyone who would not go through all its costs, and more, for the moment when anguish breaks into triumph - or even for the glory of having nobly lost? Is life less than a boat race? If a man will give all the blood in his body to win the one, will he not spend all the might of his soul to prevail in the other?”
― Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

“A good shell has to have life and resiliency to get in harmony with the swing of the crew.”
― Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

“If you are the only one who's rowing in the boat, you have no right to complain about which way you are heading!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Standing there watching them, it occurred to me that when Hitler watched Joe and the boys fight their way back from the rear of the field to sweep ahead of Italy and Germany seventy-five years ago, he saw, but did not recognize heralds of his doom. He could not have known that one day hundreds of thousands of boys just like them, boys who shared their essential natures--decent and unassuming, not privileged or favored by anything in particular, just loyal, committed, and perseverant--would return to Germany dressed in olive drab, hunting him down.
"They are almost all gone now--the legions of young men who saved the world in the years just before I was born. But that afternoon, standing on the balcony of Haus West, I was swept with gratitude for their goodness and their grace, their humility and their honor, their simple civility and all the things they taught us before they flitted across the evening water and finally vanished into the night.”
― Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat: The True Story of an American Team's Epic Journey to Win Gold at the 1936 Olympics

“As any non-rower can tell you, rowers are not fun. This is because rowers only ever want to talk about rowing. Get two or more rowers in a room and the conversation goes from normal topics like work or weather to long, pointless stories about boats, blisters, oars, grips, ergs, feathers, workouts, catches, releases, recoveries, splits, seas, strokes, slides, starts, settles, sprints, and whether the water was really “flat” or not. From there, it usually progresses to what went wrong on the last row, what might go wrong on the next row, and whose fault it was and/or will be. At some point the rowers will hold their hands and compare calluses. If you’re really unlucky, this could be followed by several minutes of head-bowing reverence as one of them recounts the perfect row where it all felt so easy.”
― Bonnie Garmus

“The Head of the Charles in Cambridge, Mass., is the great American crew event, athletically and socially. It occurs the second weekend in October; secondary schools and colleges send shells in all categories in the three-mile race up the Charles River. Drunken Preps line the banks and bridges at Harvard, ready to howl with glee as a coxswain rams his shell into a stanchion of the Eliot Street Bridge (where the river narrows and curves with treacherous suddenness).”
― Lisa Birnbach, The Official Preppy Handbook

“In crew, contempt is important. In Boston, Boston University and Northeastern crew are treated with contempt by the college up the river. Intramural crew is treated with contempt. Nonathletic coxswains (Chinese engineering majors, poets) are treated with contempt. A true coxswain is a diminutive jock, raging against the pint size that made him the butt of so many jokes at Prep school. He runs twenty stadiums a day, his girlfriend is six feet one, and he can scream orders even when he has the flu (which he catches at least three times a winter).”
― Lisa Birnbach, The Official Preppy Handbook

“Then the coxswain called out, 'Ready all!' Joe turned and faced the rear of the boat, slid his seat forward, sank the white blade of his oar into the oil-black water, tensed his muscles, and waited for the command that would propel him forward into the glimmering darkness.”
― Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

“I’d say it was a pleasure rowing with you, only it wasn’t.”
― Jennifer McKeithen, Atlantis: On the Shores of Forever

“And so in time the rowboat and I became one and the same-like the archer and his bow or the artist and his paint. What I learned wasn't mastery over the elements; it was mastery over myself, which is what conquest is ultimately all about.”
― Richard Bode , First You Have to Row a Little Boat: Reflections on Life & Living

“Few experiences can match the heady pleasure of trailing one's hand gently through the cool smoothness of water, of feeling the surging movement, the gentle increase of pressure and caress between the fingers with each pull of the oars.”
― Norman Thelwell, A Plank Bridge by a Pool

“There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction they are going!
There's no knowing where they're rowing,
Or which way the river's flowing!
Not a speck of light is showing,
So the danger must be growing,
For the rowers keep on rowing,
And they're certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing. . . .”
― Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

“First, no one learns to row in a month. (. . .) As for the skimming part – there is no skimming. To get to the point where rowing might resemble skimming, you’ve probably reached the Olympic level and the look on your face as you fly down the racecourse is not one of calm satisfaction but controlled agony. This is sometimes accompanied by a look of determination – usually one that indicates that right after this race is over, you plan to find a new sport.”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“Gough was a serious student but found time to gain a blue in rowing; he was later to say that the sport was an apt one for men in public life because you could face one way while going in the other.”
― Mungo MacCallum, The Good, the Bad & the Unlikely: Australia's Prime Ministers

“Give me ten big ones!”
― Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

“What use is rowing - for a captain without a ship?”
― Moniastw

“and the Real point... I am trying to make here. besides I HATE THIS SHITHOLE AND I WANT TO GO BACK TO RUSSIA is.... I was influenced. I was influenced by some real, true, pieces of shit. their names include Gregg Hartsuff (piece of shit coach), Greg Yezersky (uncle), my little piece of shit daddy, Jim Smith (Labor department), and Dick M. (anonymous piece of shit sponsor.) there. that's about right. So start to work on yourselves. Your Moral Stature. I think that's what they call it.

I want you to talk about how you feel. how does it FEEL?
to represent USA. A shithole country. your idiot, pussy bitch military is chasing Arabs somewhere. while drunk Russians keep fucking your women in the ass. just for fun. how does that feel, you silly (n word)? I use the word N. to refer to white people I dislike and disrespect, a lot.

see, I worked a lot. a whole lot. because my idiot parents dragged me to this shithole. SHITHOLE. but I don't want to be in this shithole.

can you do something, please, to maybe send me back to Russia?

Russia is a nice place. Samara is a beautiful city.

come on, Gregg. I remember. You were fucking with me because my GPA was like a 3.1. not a 3.2. right. RIGHT? let's be real precise about shit. let's be REAL thorough and precise.

well we won a LOTTERY apparently. To come here. WHERE IS MY FUCKING MONEY?

You stupid piece of shit.”
― Dmitry Dyatlov

“Hann fær byr, ið bíðar, og havn, ið rør.”
― Färinger