Boats

• "`Nice? It's the only thing,' said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant forward for his stroke. `Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing -- absolute nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing,' he went on dreamily: `messing -- about -- in -- boats; messing -- -- ' ... ` -- about in boats -- or with boats,' the Rat went on composedly, picking himself up with a pleasant laugh. `In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not. --Grahame, Kenneth. The Wind in the Willows

• "But they will have the delight of seeing the bow-wave flung wide to leeward and the wake racing away, everything alive and tearing through the water. They would be dull souls that did not love that." --Lt. Harding to Admiral Aubrey in "21" by Patrick O'Brian