Ocean Quotes

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever i find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet... I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“When Rachel Carson accepted the National Book Award, she said, 'if there is poetry in my book about the sea it is not because I deliberately put it there but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out poetry.”
― Jim Lynch, The Highest Tide

“When the ship approached the equator, I stopped going out on deck in the daytime. The sun burned like a flame. The days had shortened and night came swiftly. One moment it was light, the next it was dark. The sun did not set but fell into the water like a meteor. Late in the evening, when I went out briefly, a hot wind slapped my face. From the ocean came a roar of passions that seemed to have broken through all barriers:'We mus procreate and multiply! We must exhaust all the powers of lust!' The waves glowed like lava, and I imagined I could see multitudes of living beings - algae, whales, sea monsters - reveling in an orgy, from the surface to the bottom of the sea. Immortality was the law here. The whole planet raged with animation. At times, I heard my name in the clamor: the spirit of the abyss calling me to join them in their nocturnal dance. ("Hanka")”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940s to Now

“My room was in one of those turrets and at night I could hear the sea and the faint rustle of eelgrass in the soft wind. The weather was perfect that summer. No storms. Blue skies and just the right amount of wind every day. The sailors were in heaven.”
― Katherine Hall Page

“What an incomparable creature is the sea! ("Absolute Evil")”
― Julian Hawthorne, American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps

“The human animal began as a mere wriggling thing in the ancient seas, struggling out onto land with many regrets. That is what brings us so full of longing to the sea.”
― Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture

“Shearwater sighed, like a whale in the night.”
― Aldous Huxley, Antic Hay

“American whale oil lit the world. It was used in the production of soap, textiles, leather, paints, and varnishes, and it lubricated the tools and machines that drove the Industrial Revolution. The baleen cut from the mouths of whales shaped the course of feminine fashion by putting the hoop in hooped skirts and giving form to stomachtightening
and chest-crushing corsets. Spermaceti, the waxy substance from the heads of sperm whales, produced the brightest- and cleanest-burning candles the world has ever known, while ambergris, a byproduct of irritation in a sperm whale’s bowel, gave perfumes great staying power and was worth its weight in gold.”
― Eric Jay Dolin, Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America

“There were three things sought by invaders who crossed
oceans to discover America. Those were gold, gospel, glory.
There are four things sought by aliens who crossed heavens
to discover planet earth. Those are gold, gospel, glory, gene.”
― Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut

“Mr. Bird flung his food away and leaped to his feet, glaring around at no one in particular. 'I am not a dog!' he shouted agrily, his gold earrings flashing in the firelight.”
― Tim Powers, On Stranger Tides

“to split the very sea into ours and theirs." Border at the Beach

And More White Sheets”
― Eileen Clemens Granfors

“Shandy looked ahead. Blackbeard, apparently willing to get the explanation later, had picked up his oars and was rowing again.
'May I presume to suggest,' yelled Shandy giddily to Davies,
'that we preoceed the hell out of here with all due haste.'
Davies pushed a stray lock of hair back from his forehead and sat down on the rower's thwart. 'My dear fellow consider it done.”
― Tim Powers, On Stranger Tides

“I never tired of picturing sharks.”
― Eileen Granfors, Flash Warden and Other Stories

“She was crouched in the corner of the room, eating something off the floor. It was the old woman dressed in endless black. When she looked up this time there was no question she was there for me. She had the face of my mother but much older, her ancient decayed mouth coming closer for her good-night kiss. I steeled myself against her putrid smell, the mouthful of bitter dust, but as her lips touched mine it was like biting into a purple black plum whose fruit was brilliant red, like an explosion of intense joy. Its childhood smell wrinkled my nose with pleasure, its sweet juices ran down my chin, turning into a beautiful black ocean where I floated safely, not lost as I had imagined, but securely tucked away deep in space.”
― Mary Woronov, Swimming Underground: My Years in the Warhol Factory

“Increasingly, we will be faced with a choice: whether to keep the oceans for wild fish or farmed fish. Farming domesticated species in close proximity with wild fish will mean that domesticated fish always win. Nobody in the world of policy appears to be asking what is best for society, wild fish or farmed fish. And what sort of farmed fish, anyway? Were this question to be asked, and answered honestly, we might find that our interests lay in prioritizing wild fish and making their ecosystems more productive by leaving them alone enough of the time.”
― Charles Clover, The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat

“…have poets write about you as if you are alive. Scientifically, it is absolutely true, you are alive. You have a pulse, the waves, and a metabolism, the food chain. A personality, a character, a consciousness, and a sense of purpose…try this- turn into spray, spin rainbows…wear down entire mountains and dump them in layers…gently surround marina sea grass twice a day, protecting and feeding thousands of crabs, ducks, and geese…fill human eyes with warm salt brine at least once a month…

Becoming Water”
― Susan Zwinger, The Last Wild Edge: One Woman's Journey from the Arctic Circle to the Olympic Rain Forest

“The deep sea will never run out of things for us to dream about. Places will remain unseen and unvisited, fleeting moments will be missed, and nimble creatures, whose existence nobody can guess, will keep slipping out of sigh. We need to do all we can to keep it that way.”
― Helen Scales, The Brilliant Abyss

“A pas de deux is more than just a partnered dance. Two souls. One body. Entwining together and weaving a story--- evoking a sensation, a memory, a thought. I shut my eyes, remembering how Damien laid me upon the petals and joined his soul with mine. In the heat of summer, he vowed to love me, and we became a part of each other.
We separate, taking our places across the sea.
The tension pent up inside my body slips away as the darkness spills into the water. My dance was always powerful, even when I'm imperfect and fragile and completely surrendered. I know that now.
I fall into my adagio, weightless. Technique no longer matters. Instead, I'm passive to the waves, allowing the current to spin me in pirouettes. The darkness fans out, blooming like a flower.
As I lunge into an arabesque, my fingertips release a nebula. Stars explode across the darkness and create my own galaxy. I fall into a piqué manège, birthing stardust strokes. With quick bourrée steps, constellations sprout across the sea.
The water illuminates as I leap into a grand jeté, sending shooting stars as I fly. The sirens coo, and I welcome them to join me. They spin tendrils of gold into the darkness, using their fish tails like paintbrushes. As they circle me, the ragged dress I wear transforms into a glittering gown, reflecting rainbows when hit by the light. Finally, I embrace the angel I always was.
Filling the distance between me and Damien, I leap into his arms. When he catches me, his darkness feathers into the sea. We entwine, twirling in a whirlpool as the sirens hold us in a glittering lattice.”
― Kiana Krystle, Dance of the Starlit Sea

“There are no compelling reasons for exploiting the deep, just industry and politics vying to push into that last frontier.”
― Helen Scales, The Brilliant Abyss

“The deep sea will never run out of things for us to dream about. Places will remain unseen and unvisited, fleeting moments will be missed, and nimble creatures, whose existence nobody can guess, will keep slipping out of sight. We need to do all we can to keep it that way.”
― Helen Scales, The Brilliant Abyss

“The other frogs all told me to stay safe in our well and to stop filling my head with, "Dangerous ocean nonsense!" But I could not forget...”
― E. K. Mosley, The Last Stardog

“Dangerous ocean nonsense!”
― E. K. Mosley, The Last Stardog

“In all the art Jay’s seen, sperm whales are barges of fat. But when the whale before him curls its fluked tail to the side, muscles larger than Jay pull tight, pinching seams through the blubber. It must be the strongest thing that ever lived, matched only by its unexpected grace. It holds the pose: a comma in a sentence so large only gods can read it.”
― Daniel Kraus, Whalefall

“In silence, we watched the water shimmer like a peacock's feather in that shining foil of soft tide in retreat.”
― Pat Conroy, Beach Music

“Grief transforms you into someone you can't even recognize. For some it becomes a hard swim to the shores, for it becomes a fight for the light...and for the rest, they remain baffled in the thick fog of grief...”
― Jayita Bhattacharjee

“Grief transforms you into someone you can't even recognize. For some, it becomes a hard swim to the shores, for it becomes a fight for the light, and for the rest, they remain baffled forever in the thick fog of grief.”
― Jayita Bhattacharjee

“Grief transforms you into someone you can't even recognize. For some it becomes a hard swim to the shores, becoming a fight for the light...and for the rest, they remain baffled forever in the thick fog of grief...”
― Jayita Bhattacharjee

“We have neither tentacles nor limestone exoskeletons, but are we really so different from coral?”
― Bill François, Eloquence of the Sardine: Extraordinary Encounters Beneath the Sea

“And what could be more silent and less interesting than a whelk?
And yet...”
― Bill François, Eloquence of the Sardine: Extraordinary Encounters Beneath the Sea

“Even before humanity realized the earth spins on its axis, they had understood that the sea belongs to everyone”
― Bill François, Eloquence of the Sardine: Extraordinary Encounters Beneath the Sea