“We awake at dawn.To sink or swim.”
“If you don't want to sink, you better figure out how to swim”
“You better start swimming, or you'll sink like a stone. Because the Time's they are a-changing.”
“I looked at the sweatshirt again. "'You swim' is a philosophy?" He shrugged. "Better than 'you sink', right?”
“My parents believe in the principle of ‘sink or swim,’ or ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger ― or it kills you.”From “The Education of Robert Nifkin”
“...As marriage was woman's business, unmarried women, though doubtless unfortunate, must simply be considered as business failures: harsh, doubtless, but in tune with the sink-or-swim capitalist times.”