Read on for a selection of famous quotes and sayings from those who served or survived the Titanic ship, regarding the day the Titanic sank, and even from the cast of the 1997 Titanic movie.
Icebergs loomed up and fell astern and we never slackened. It was an anxious time with the Titanic’s fateful experience very close in our minds. -Captain Arthur H Rostron, Commander of the Carpathia (recounting the Carpathia’s desperate journey to the site of the sinking)
The partly filled lifeboat standing by about 100 yards away never came back. Why on Earth they never came back is a mystery. How could any human being fail to heed those cries. -Jack B Thayer, Titanic Survivor
I was thoroughly familiar with pretty well every type of ship afloat but it took me 14 days before I could, with confidence, find my way from one part of that ship to another. -Charles Lightoller, Titanic Second Officer (describing his impression of the sheer size of Titanic)
Devoutly thankful I was that the long race was over…but with that feeling was the veritable ache which the now certain knowledge of the liner’s loss brought. -Arthur Rostron, Captain of the Carpathia (describing his feelings upon reaching the scene of the sinking; ‘Home From The Sea’ 1931)
If you look in your dictionary you will find: Titans – A race of people vainly striving to overcome the forces of nature. Could anything be more unfortunate than such a name, anything more significant? -Arthur Rostron, Captain of the rescue ship Carpathia (‘Home From The Sea’ 1931)
Although you cross the Atlantic for years and have ice reported and never see it, at other times it’s not reported and you do see it. -Charles Lightoller, Titanic Second Officer (speaking at the public inquiry into the sinking)
Striking the water was like a thousand knives being driven into one’s body. The temperature was 28 degrees, four degrees below freezing. -Charles Lightoller, Titanic Second Officer
The big icebergs that drift into warmer water melt much more rapidly under water than on the surface, and sometimes a sharp, low reef extending two or three hundred feet beneath the sea is formed. If a vessel should run on one of these reefs half her bottom might be torn away. -Captain Edward John Smith, Commander of Titanic
The sounds of people drowning are something that I can not describe to you, and neither can anyone else. Its the most dreadful sound and there is a terrible silence that follows it. -Eva Hart, Survivor of the Titanic
I heard a graphic account of how the Titanic up-ended herself and remained poised like some colossal nightmare of a fish, her tail high in the air, her nose deep in the water, until she dived finally from human sight. -Arthur Rostron, Captain of the rescue ship Carpathia (‘Home From The Sea’ 1931)
Except for the [life] boats beside the ship and the icebergs, the sea was strangely empty. Hardly a bit of wreckage floated – just a deck chair or two, a few life belts, a good deal of cork*. -Arthur Rostron, Captain of the Carpathia (‘Home From The Sea’ 1931) *cork was the material used for the life preservers
To my poor fellow-sufferers: My heart overflows with grief for you all and is laden with sorrow that you are weighed down with this terrible burden that has been thrust upon us. May God be with us and comfort us all. -Eleanor Smith, Captain Edward Smith’s widow
From the very day that she was designed she was almost doomed…this [the use of iron rivets] was almost the Achilles heel of the Titanic. -Paul Louden-Brown, White Star Line Archivist
Deeply regret advise you Titanic sank this morning after collision with iceberg, resulting in serious loss of life. Full particulars later. -Bruce Ismay (in a telegram to the White Star Line)
It hardly bears thinking about that if there had been sufficient boats that night…every soul aboard could have been saved, since it was two-and-a-half hours after she struck that she tilted her massive stern into the heavens and sank by the head, taking with her all that were unprovided for. -Arthur Rostron, Captain of the rescue vessel Carpathia (‘Home From The Sea’ 1931)
I think the enquiry is a complete whitewash. You have the [British] Board of Trade in effect enquiring into a disaster that’s largely of its own making. -Paul Louden-Brown, White Star Line Archivist
SOS Titanic calling. We have struck ice and require immediate assistance.
They must have known that pumping could do no more than delay the final catastrophe, yet they stuck pluckily to their duty. – Sir Archibald Denny (speaking at the unveiling of the Titanic Engineers’ Memorial on 22 April 1914)
It’s not a question of actually finding a bone. There are human remains in one form or another around that wreck, as well as all sorts of shattered lives directly associated with it. -Dan Conlin, a Curator with the Nova Scotia Maritime Museum (referring to the successful attempt to raise a section of the ship’s hull, 1998)
Titanic Movie Quotes
He exists now only in my memory. -the final words spoken by the older Rose, in James Cameron’s 1997 movie Titanic