A Quote by Margaret Atwood

Once I was in Texas, where they had this thing called Ralph the Swimming Pig. You went into a theater and you were looking through a great big window at people dressed as mermaids swimming around with oxygen tanks. One of the mermaids had a bottle of milk, and a small Ralph the Swimming Pig dove in and swam over. Naturally, afterward, I said in the cafeteria, "What happens to the Ralphs when they get bigger? Would you serve Ralphs who have retired?" "Oh no! We would never do such a thing."

Margaret Atwood

Quote Topics

Around Big Bigger Bottle Cafeteria Dove Dressed Get Great Had Happens Looking Milk Naturally Never Oh Once Over Oxygen People Pig Ralph Retired Said Serve Small Such A Thing Swimming Tanks Texas Theater Thing Through Were Window Would

Quote Author

Margaret Atwood
Canadian - Novelist
Born: November 18, 1939

When I was six I wanted to be a ballerina. By the time I was eight I was fairly sure this plan wasn't panning out. I began aspiring to be an "Aquamaid" at a resort called "Aquarena Springs" in my hometown of San Marcos: Aquamaids got to wear mermaid tails and feed milk bottles underwater to Ralph the Swimming Pig for an audience submerged in a "submarine".

Elizabeth Crook

I love swimming, swimming's my passion and I hope I swim until the last day of my life, so I really, really do enjoy swimming, but swimming for me is simply a way of carrying a message.

Lewis Pugh

I couldn't make it on the swimming team in high school. In fact, I got thrown off the swimming team and was forced to audition for the school play because they had at the audition about 35 girls show up and no boys, so my swimming coach suggested that I might be able to do the drama department more good than I was doing the swimming team.

Ron Perlman

Guys can look like pigs. The girl always has to be a looker. Look at most TV shows: According To Jim - pig and a looker. Still Standing - pig and a looker. Ralph Kramden [on The Honeymooners] - pig and a looker. Family Guy - pig and a looker. It's a theme.

Alex Borstein

The only place I really get recognized is at Ralphs. Whenever I'm in L.A., I go to Ralphs, and for some reason, everyone there recognizes me.

Lauren Lee Smith

I wasn't aware of my dad being an actor when I was young. I remember there was an Australian children's entertainer on television called Ralph Harris and when I'd say my father was an actor, kids would say, you know, 'oh, is he Ralph Harris?' And I had to say no and then they would lose interest.

Jared Harris

I remember a story I once heard about drowning: that when you fall into cold water it's not that you drown right away but that the cold disorients you and makes you think that down is up and up is down, so you may be swimming, swimming, swimming for your life in the wrong direction, all the way toward the bottom until you sink. That's how I feel, as though everything has been turned around.

Lauren Oliver

I grew up in Florida, so you start swimming at the age of 1, really. By 10, I was competitive swimming, and by 12, I had aspirations to be the best in the world.

Diana Nyad

I got bored and then joined the British SAS. It was five very exciting years of my life, and then I'd always had this passion for swimming, so started swimming around the world, in some of the most exotic and distant and dangerous locations.

Lewis Pugh

That's part of the comedy, too, is we do have jokes throughout of hanging a lantern on the absurdity of the world. Like, when BoJack's flying over the neighborhood, you see some houses have swimming pools in the backyard, and what does that mean? Why would there be a swimming pool underwater? But we thought it was funny.

Raphael Bob-Waksberg

I used to hate swimming at school so much that I would always sneak downstairs in the middle of the night and take my swimming costume out of my gym bag and hide it in the house somewhere. Then I'd never have to go swimming at school. This went on for months and I never got caught and my Mum turned into a nervous wreck because the thought she was losing her memory... and then one day she caught me and got super angry. That was kind of bad.

Charli XCX

The Doctor: Just had a fall. All the way down there, right to the library. Heck of a climb back up. Amelia: You're soaking wet. The Doctor: I was in the swimming pool. Amelia: You said you were in the library. The Doctor: So was the swimming pool.

Steven Moffat

Swimming is more than a once-every-four-years sport. My goal is to bring attention to swimming - to give it some personality.

Michael Phelps

The thing that kills me is all these bands that use huge words in their lyrics, 'I'm swimming in a vortex of apathy.' I'm like, 'What?' I don't walk up to a friend and go 'That's a stylin' looking vortex of apathy you've got there pal. I was swimming up a river of deceit myself.'

Devin Townsend

I think of me and Melanie when we were younger, on the high dive at the pool in Mexico. We would always hold hands as we jumped, but by the time we swam back up to the surface, we'd have let go. No matter how we tried, once we started swimming, we always let go. But after we bobbed to the surface, we'd climb out of the pool, clamber up the high-dive ladder, clasp hands, and do it again. We're swimming separately now. I get that. Maybe it's just what you have to do to keep above water. But who knows? Maybe one day, we'll climb out, grab hands, and jumo again.