January 18: Arthur Ransome Quotes

Today, 10 quotes from Arthur Ransome, author of Swallows and Amazons, who was born on this date in 1884.

1. Grab a chance and you won't be sorry for a might-have-been.
2. The desire to build a house is the tired wish of a man content thenceforward with a single anchorage. The desire to build a boat is the desire of youth, unwilling yet to accept the idea of a final resting place.
3. When a thing's done, it's done, and if it's not done right, do it differently next time.
4. Perhaps the greatest satisfaction on the first day of the season is the knowledge in the evening that the whole of the rest of the season is to come.
5. They found, like many explorers before them, that somehow, in their absence, they had got into trouble at home.
6. No one wants to row who has ever sailed.
7. What's hit's history: what's missed's mystery.
8. Houses, are but badly built boats so firmly aground that you cannot think of moving them.
9. Softly, at first, as if it hardly meant it, the snow began to fall.
10. She's got a rum job, but she knows how to do it, and to have a job and know how to do it is one of the best things in this life.

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