Lighthouse Keeper Quotes

Who is Hunter Becker?" "Becker the Gory? Lighthouse Keepers? Boston?" "I would've preferred Becker the Easiley Surrendering or Becker the Quite Reasonable, but beyond that his name tells me nothing.

I don't know what happened between the two of you. I don't know if it can be forgiven. The hardest thing always is to forgive yourself.

Lighthouses are not just stone, brick, metal, and glass. There's a human story at every lighthouse; that's the story I want to tell.

As I left the landing, I had the peculiar thought that I was not the first to pocket the photo, that someone would always come behind to replace it, to circle the lighthouse keeper again.

All paths are seen, through the prism of fate

Lighthouse keepers were once warned they shouldn’t listen to the sea for too long; likewise, you could hear voices in the static and lose your mind. It was as if there were a code in there—a code that could, as soon as your mind detected it, irrevocably conjure demons from the depths.

This life is a shadowy thing, lad. We live in a crowded space of lights and shadows, and when left to ourselves, we all too often fail to see the brightest light of all.

We are the eyes in the darkness

Our light shall burn the pathway to the stars

We have a light upon our house, and it gives hope to all who sail upon the stormy seas. Do ya know what it means to have a light burning atop your home? It is safety, a place of refuge, seen by all that as a signal that ye stand for something greater than this world, greater than us all.

Even the brave were once afraid. However well I might hide it, the truth is, I am terrified.

an easy ascent up the stairs. The

What we think of as our refuge and sanctuary, could easily become the place of our captivity.

Maybe it was just a matter of letting life happen to me a little bit more and planning for it a little bit less.

You can’t stay dry and in one temperature all your life.

The dreams of youth. So noble. So good. And heavy dreamsthey were- made frail only by their own weight.

It shines like your very own star,” he said. “Every time you see it, you won’t have to be afraid. You’ll know that you’re not alone.

ladder. I made a move to climb up, too, and Kip touched

Even the brave were once afraid

pair of Stephens Island wrens, which were found only on a small, isolated island in New Zealand’s Cook Strait. All were killed by a lighthouse keeper’s cat.

They think being married to a lighthouse keeper must be glamorous, because of the mystery of it, but it isn’t.

Yet I murdered the lighthouse keeper, Botho August, and that is an equal part of how I think about myself.

There will always be someone willing to save us, Grace. Even a stranger whose name we don’t know. That is the very best of humanity. That is what puts my mind at ease on a day like today.

Ah, children, pity level-crossing keepers, pity lock-keepers – pity lighthouse-keepers – pity all the keepers of this world (pity even school teachers), caught between their conscience and the bleak horizon…

No matter how many charts and maps we study, or how cleverly we believe ourselves able to interpret the change in atmosphere or the shape of the clouds or the movement of the waves, we can never truly know what the day will bring; cannot plan for every eventuality. Only as each dreadful misfortune or delightful surprise unfolds can we choose how to respond; fleeting decisions made in an instant but which carry an echo across a lifetime.

The lighthouse keeper’s dog took a sniff of Queenie’s shoes and growled. It was probably a good judge of character, I decided. Yet as my brain caught up with what was happening, I realised life had taken a sudden turn for the better. Putting down our suitcases, I gave Cliff’s arm an excited squeeze. We were going to live in the lighthouse!

I remembered the moment I saw him on the beach. I liked him, for a total of about ten seconds. Then he spoke.

And yet, I was bound by an oath of loyalty which was impossible to deny or ignore.

I know you will never forget what happened, but sometimes a different view in the morning, a different shape to the day, can help to heal even the deepest wounds.

...she needed to confirm its presence. Like the keeper of the lighthouse and the prisoner, she regarded it as a mooring, a checkpoint, some stable visual object that assured her that the world was still there; that this was like and not a dream. That she was alive somewhere, inside, which she acknowledged to be true only because a thing she knew intimately was out there, outside of herself.

I do not know how this thorn got here or from how far away it came, but by luck or fate or design at some point it found the lighthouse keeper and did not let him go. How long he had as it remade him, repurposed him, is a mystery. There was no one to observe, to bear witness—until thirty years later a biologist catches a glimpse of him and speculates on what he might have become. Catalyst. Spark. Engine.

They were married within a year and slotted themselves into their respective lifelong roles—my father was the lighthouse, my mother the keeper who wound the clockwork, polished the lenses, and swept all those rocky steps. My

The fastest extinction in New Zealand – possibly in the entire world – was the Stephen’s Island wren, which lived on tiny Stephen’s Island, in Cook Strait. It was discovered in 1894, when a new lighthouse keeper arrived on the island for the first time. One of his cats caught a bird he didn’t recognise, so he sent the little body to a friend in Wellington, who happened to be a professional ornithologist. By the time the excited friend sent news back that it was a species new to science, the cat had caught another fifteen. And that was it – there were none left. Stephen’s Island wren officially became extinct later the same year. The cat had eaten the first and last of the species, and all the others in between. Its owner, the lighthouse keeper, was the only person ever to have seen one alive.

Identify your strengths, and then—this is important—major in them. Take a few irons out of the fire so this one can get hot. Failing to focus on our strengths may prevent us from accomplishing the unique tasks God has called us to do. A lighthouse keeper who worked on a rocky stretch of coastline received oil once a month to keep his light burning. Not being far from a village, he had frequent guests. One night a woman needed oil to keep her family warm. Another night a father needed oil for his lamp. Then another needed oil to lubricate a wheel. All the requests seemed legitimate, so the lighthouse keeper tried to meet them all. Toward the end of the month, however, he ran out of oil, and his lighthouse went dark, causing several ships to crash on the coastline. The man was reproved by his superiors, “You were given the oil for one reason,” they said, “to keep the light burning.”1 We cannot meet every need in the world. We cannot please every person in the world. We cannot satisfy every request in the world. But some of us try. And in the end, we run out of fuel. Have a sane estimate of your abilities and stick to them.

12 September, 1873 Log: As I write this passage, grey tendrils of smoke fill the living space inside the lighthouse. They writhe in the air as if they are restricted while they search for an escape. They are trapped here, just like me. So I roll a little more smoke around in my mouth then let it drift up and out of my nostrils to join its fellow in his misery. In truth though, smoking seems to be the only thing that can calm my nerves now. The only thing that can take my mind off the things I’ve seen — but even then only a little. I remember sighing right before I stood and walked over to take the steps to the top of the lighthouse, and my hand trembled as I clutched my pipe close to my chest — as if it were able to protect me.

In Poe’s story the keeper had no name but the dog did, Neptune. ‘Large as he is,’ says the lighthouse keeper, Neptune ‘is not to be taken into consideration as ‘society’. Would to Heaven I had ever found in ‘society’ one half so much faith as in this poor dog:- in such case i and ‘society’ might never have parted’. Neptune is the name of the Roman god or the seas, me the dog in Pope’s story is a water dog, the keeper’s only companion. He doesn’t take the place of society, he exceeds it. He is unadulterated company. Pure company.

When I open my eyes, Cora is there. She takes my hand and together we become the fragments of light captured on the surface of the water, carried eternally on by the tides.

Do you really know what Nature is? Are you really so familiar with all of the parts that make up the whole of the world? Can there be such a thing as the “supernatural”… or are such things simply parts of Nature which we don’t understand?

the things that frighten us the most are the things that make us who we are.

The imagination is what separates us from the animals, but sometimes… well, sometimes it is not our friend. Sometimes it betrays us and leads us towards superstition and senseless fear…

But the ages of man are but the ages of the world writ small, and just as the land is gradually transformed by the wind and the rain, the warmth of the summer and the cold of winter’s chiselling frosts, by the breathing seasons of the world, so are we constantly altered and shaped by the experiences of our lives, which can mould us gently like the skilful hands of a potter, or beat our minds into new forms like white-hot metal upon a blacksmith’s anvil.

John, I’m only an Occasional, and I wouldn’t presume to tell you your job, or how to behave, or what to think. But we cannot be ruled by our imaginations, not here, and not now. The imagination is what separates us from the animals, but sometimes… well, sometimes it is not our friend. Sometimes it betrays us and leads us towards superstition and senseless fear…

It was clear that these men entertained the same misgivings about me as John Milne, and I was at a loss to explain what they were. Was it just unfamiliarity, combined with the natural taciturnity of seamen?

I felt as if I were trapped between two worlds: that of misty legend and that of the scientific intellect of modern man. I felt lost in a limbo between the spirit and the machine, besieged by both, and truly understanding neither.

I believe that God created the Universe, but He designed it to follow the immutable laws that He also created. Those laws cannot be broken, but God gave humanity the faculties of reason and logic to understand them, and to apply that understanding in order to solve the mysteries of creation.

for in those terrible moments it occurred to me that strangeness could reach an intensity that was lethal to the human mind,

I can accept the idea of a First Cause, a supremely powerful entity with the ability to create space, time and matter – to create universes. But what I can’t accept is that human religion has come anywhere near describing or understanding it, or ever could.

Our science and our cities are manacles on the feet of Nature; we bind it to our will, and most of us have forgotten what it was like when we lay naked and defenceless in its hands.

lots of them. One was in the Eiffel Tower, during the Paris Exposition. I didn't see that, but I have read about it. Another is in one of the twin lighthouses at the Highlands, on the Atlantic coast of New Jersey, just above Asbury Park. That light is of ninety-five million candle power, and the lighthouse keeper there told me it was visible, on a clear night, as far as the New Haven, Connecticut, lighthouse, a distance of fifty miles.

Many a year I told her tales. And then the time came for me to watch. And watch I have.

Ruth looked for the water mark several times during the day. She knew it was there, would always be there, but she needed to confirm its presence. Like the keeper of the lighthouse and the prisoner, she regarded it as a mooring, a checkpoint, some stable visual object that assured her that the world was still there; that this was life and not a dream. That she was alive somewhere, inside, which she acknowledged to be true only because a thing she knew intimately was out there, outside herself.

Dorjan didn’t know whether to admire the record keeper who’d been added to his family or just call the man odd for his dedication to recording small things. Some people are record keepers. Lighthouse keepers, for instance. Weather keepers for the almanac. There are organizations with profound record-keeping characteristics such as archivists for arts and history museums, research scientists, political biographers, and the recent Internal Revenue Service which could be up to no good, but what was Rich up to?

the

I don’t get it. All these gods do is sit around and be angry and jealous. Like damn. You could do something useful. Cure cancer or something. Instead, he’s in here doing what? Playing lighthouse keeper?

am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship. —Louisa May Alcott

Even the brave were once afraid.

The sun to my cloud. The calm to my storm.

Being a dream, the lighthouse keeper was nameless. You see, dream-folk are not ordinary people, bound by the cycle of birth and death. They are the symbols and manifestations of the collective unconscious. They are the wise old man before he was Gandalf the Grey. They are The Hero with a Thousand Faces. They are every villain that same hero overcame. They are the everlasting ideas we transform into all those mythologies which give sense to the world.

Not only do lighthouse keepers keep secrets, they fish for them. Most waking fisherman also fish for secrets, though few realize it. The typical fisherman casts his line of hope into the wild blue yonder, hopeful the forces of fate will answer his call. Fish for long enough and all those secrets of the universe can be caught: the meaning of life, the nature of reality, to be or not to be. Fish for long enough, and the depths will disclose their own dreams.

I'm not saying nothing, excepting to say it were done because it were needed to be done. There were lives needed saving. And there's an end to it. Lie isn't about medals. Now off you go, and leave me be. I got my lighthouse to look after.' And he just turned and walked away.

But sometimes even the brightest light on a lighthouse cannot save a ship.

He sat up abruptly in bed, stifled another cough. Someone was in his lighthouse. More than one person. Whispering. Or maybe even shouting, the sound by the time it infiltrated the brick and stone, the wood and steel, brought to him through a distance, a time, that he couldn’t know. The irrational thought that he was hearing the ghosts of dozens of lighthouse keepers all at once, in a kind of threnody, the condensed chorus of a century. Another phantom sound?

Na península de Ner-Olom, abaixo dos escarpados penhascos de Alet, ficava a Praia dos Ossos, a enseada vigiada pelo velho farol, coberta em areia tão escura como as rochas que a rodeavam. Talvez a praia nem sempre se tivesse chamado assim, mas qualquer outro nome, se é que existiu, perdera-se no tempo e nas más lembranças.

I want to be that person for him, I want to be the one who keeps him going during this difficult time. I want to be his lighthouse keeper ... but it's hard. Harder than I thought.

the rhythmic movement of the light as it rotates from the lighthouse, draws attention and offers reassurance to those on the sea. Both ship navigator and lighthouse keeper must be vigilant in their roles, for they share the common responsibility of saving lives.

She knew it was there, would always be there, but she needed to confirm its presence. Like the keeper of the lighthouse and the prisoner, she regarded it as a mooring, a checkpoint, some stable visual object that assured her that the world was still there; that this was life and not a dream. That she was alive somewhere, inside, which she acknowledged to be true only because a thing she knew intimately was out there, outside herself.

But what bear could resist ripe strawberries as a break from the ocean's wrack line smorgasbord of half-dead hermit crabs and rotting salmon carcasses?