Salman Rushdie Quotes

Don't think she can breathe over there, chief." drawled Shaun. "Pretty sure she hasn't kicked the oxygen habit yet.

There seems to be no air in the air she breaths.

It was like letting go and falling back into water and seeing yourself grinning up through the water, your face like a mask, and seeing the bubbles coming up as if you were trying to speak from under the water. And how do you know what it's like to try to speak from under water when you're drowned?

She fell into a deep pool of sticky water, which eventually closed over her head. She saw nothing and heard nothing but a faint booming sound, which was the sound of the sea rolling over her head. While all her tormentors thought that she was dead, she was not dead, but curled up at the bottom of the sea.

Po swirled upward from where it had been sitting, and floated over to the window. "When you go swimming and you put your head under the water," Po said, "and everything is strange and underwater-sounding, and strange and underwater-looking, you don't miss the air do you? You don't miss the above-water sounds and the above-water look. It's just different." "True." Liesl was quiet for a moment. Then she added, "But I bet you'd miss it if you were drowning. I bet you'd really miss the air then."

It is a strange paradox: Humans drown in the water, fish drown in the land.

Choke me in the shallow water before I get too deep.

"Love is a luxury." "No. Love is an element." An element. Like air to breathe, earth to stand on.

Everyone knows the phenomenon of trying to hold your breath underwater - how at first it's alright and you can handle it, and then as it gets closer and closer to the time when you must breathe, how urgent the need becomes, the lust and the hunger to breathe. And then the panic sets in when you begin to think that you won't be able to breathe - and finally, when you take in air and the anxiety subsides...that's what it's like to be a vampire and need blood.

Of course, Annabeth wouldn't be able to breathe, but at the moment, that seemed like a minor problem.

I once saved someone from drowning.

No one wants to drown. Drowning would be the worst. Cause everyone knows that feeling. That feeling, oh it's the worst... when you think you're drowning.

If you can't breathe, you can't do nothing.

Waterboarding is slow-motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of blackout and expiration. Usually, the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch. If it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia - meaning, the loss of all oxygen to the cells.

But you might as well bid a man struggling in the water, rest within arm's length of the shore! I must reach it first, and then I'll rest.

The absurd is essentially a divorce. It lies in neither of the elements compared; it is born of their confrontation.

A double-edged sword One side destroys One releases I am your Gordian knot Will you release or destroy me? Follow truth and you shall: Find me on water Purify me through fire Trapped by earth nevermore Air will whisper to you What spirit already knows: That even shattered anything is possible If you believe Then we shall both be free.

I have an air mattress. It's great because if someone tries to suffocate me in bed I can just poke a hole in it and use it to stay alive.

I want to live," he said, "So I have to die.

The birds of the air die to sustain thee; the beasts of the field die to nourish thee; the fishes of the sea die to feed thee. Our stomachs are their common sepulchre. Good God! with how many deaths are our poor lives patched up! how full of death is the life of momentary man!

Fish live in water. Men die in it.Nature is diverse, and not all tastes are the same.

Ah, Mastery of the Five Elements!" "Is that the one we want?" I asked. "No, but a good one. How to tame the five essential elements of the universe - earth, air, water, fire, and cheese!" "Cheese?

If you try to breathe water, you will not turn into a fish, you will drown; but water is still good to drink.

Fire is a natural symbol of life and passion, though it is the one element in which nothing can actually live.

You must squeeze every atom of impure air from lungs until they are almost as free of air as a vacuum.