Marine Life Quotes

“I never wanted to be a God fearing person. I wanted to grow up and be a person that was fearless for God. There was a difference.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“To be a good writer, become a good listener.”
― Cynthia Briggs, The Adventures of Lily and Leon

“I can smell the ocean in the distance. The salt wraps around my body, making my skin feel tight, and already I want to shower. I can do big cities, and small cities, and the even the occasional mountaintop is cool. But oceans are ridiculous. They take up way too much space in this overcrowded world and are filled with creatures that have several sets of teeth, like one row of man-eating teeth isn’t enough. And just to add insult to injury, all that water isn’t even drinkable. If you ask me, the ocean is kind of a prick.”
― Victoria Scott, The Liberator

“On August 11th, 2010, NOAA gave permission for the US Navy to continue their training, which included mid and high-frequency sonar and the use of explosives, thus ignoring the devastating impact on marine life. They attempted to justify their actions by claiming sonar exposure is merely a matter of annoyance to whale and dolphins.”
― Anthony Hulse, CRIES FROM THE DEEP

“And everywhere, just as there were animals on land, were the animals of the sea.
The tiniest fish made the largest schools- herring, anchovies, and baby mackerel sparkling and cavorting in the light like a million diamonds. They twirled into whirlpools and flowed over the sandy floor like one large, unlikely animal.
Slightly larger fish came in a rainbow, red and yellow and blue and orange and purple and green and particolored like clowns: dragonets and blennies and gobies and combers.
Hake, shad, char, whiting, cod, flounder, and mullet made the solid middle class.
The biggest loners, groupers and oarfish and dogfish and the major sharks and tuna that all grew to a large, ripe old age did so because they had figured out how to avoid human boats, nets, lines, and bait. The black-eyed predators were well aware they were top of the food chain only down deep, and somewhere beyond the surface there were things even more hungry and frightening than they.
Rounding out the population were the famous un-fish of the ocean: the octopus, flexing and swirling the ends of her tentacles; delicate jellyfish like fairies; lobsters and sea stars; urchins and nudibranchs... the funny, caterpillar-like creatures that flowed over the ocean floor wearing all kinds of colors and appendages.
All of these creatures woke, slept, played, swam about, and lived their whole lives under the sea, unconcerned with what went on above them.
But there were other animals in this land, strange ones, who spoke both sky and sea. Seals and dolphins and turtles and the rare fin whale would come down to hunt or talk for a bit and then vanish to that strange membrane that separated the ocean from everything else. Of course they were loved- but perhaps not quite entirely trusted.”
― Liz Braswell, Part of Your World

“The ocean is a dangerous place, but it’s also a place you can still go and have to yourself, a place that’s clean and, yes, wild. If you go into the ocean you’re making a choice. You need to know you can drown, you can get lost, or you can be eaten by great beasts.”
― David Helvarg, Saved by the Sea: Hope, Heartbreak, and Wonder in the Blue World

“The pelicans paddle
in coils of waves and light. Low tide
reveals fissures of saltwater and rock.
From the smallest crevices
color insists-colonies of jade
anemones, a purple starfish harvest, barnacles
hiding beaks of unbleached linen, black mussel
bouquets. Between the air and sea,
-this, one large prayer.
I kneel.”
― Michelle Peñaloza, Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire

“If [Hurricane] Katrina pulled back the curtain on the reality of racism in America, the BP [Deepwater Horizon] disaster pulls back the curtain on something far more hidden: how little control even the most ingenious among us have over the awesome, intricately interconnected natural forces with which we so casually meddle. BP has spent weeks failing to plug the hole in the earth that it made. Our political leaders cannot order fish species to survive, or bottlenose dolphins not to die in droves. No amount of compensation money can replace a culture that has lots its roots. And while politicians and corporate leaders have yet to come to terms with these humbling truths, the people whose air, water, and livelihoods have been contaminated are losing their illusions fast.”
― Naomi Klein, On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal

“To spin like everyone else was the key to fitting in, and if she could only hear the music of the ocean like everyone else, she too would be able to tune in and do it.”
― Laline Paull, Pod

“The orca’s big brain was bigger than he had hoped—five times the size of a human’s and weighing in at nearly fifteen pounds. And this was from a young whale, not a mature adult. The brain was also more complicated than McGeer had imagined—more complicated than a human brain. Dolphin brains were impressive, but this brain was spectacular.”
― Mark Leiren-Young, The Killer Whale Who Changed the World

“Human groups who find themselves hunting in the same territory are almost expected to fight. For the most part, regardless of the continent they’re on or their culture, it’s rare when they don’t battle over land or resources. But the orca culture is more ancient than ours and, apparently, more civilized. Killer whales don’t just share food; they share the same sectors of the seas without challenging each other to determine dominance. This is true for orca families found in every ocean in the world.”
― Mark Leiren-Young, The Killer Whale Who Changed the World

“Regardless of how scientists may feel about respecting the history of the name, there’s no world in which “killer” sounds like a safe species to swim with. If you’re on their menu, the name is accurate, but if you’re not—and we’re clearly not—it’s an archaic holdover from an ancient era that makes it harder to save this vital species.”
― Mark Leiren-Young, The Killer Whale Who Changed the World

“The only intelligence tests orcas don't pass are the ones that require hands.”
― Mark Leiren-Young, Orcas Everywhere: The Mystery and History of Killer Whales

“Orcas continually prove there are more things in the ocean than are dreamt of in our science.”
― Mark Leiren-Young, Orcas Everywhere: The Mystery and History of Killer Whales

“Scientists warn that if orcas can't survive, we won't either.”
― Mark Leiren-Young, Orcas Everywhere: The Mystery and History of Killer Whales

“If you swim in the ocean every day for 100 years, you are more likely to be struck by lightning than swallowed by a shark.”
― Mark Leiren-Young, Sharks Forever: The Mystery and History of the Planet’s Perfect Predator

“These rocks
are the church
where I knelt
in black worsted silk
beside my mother.
Her shoulders sharp
beneath my embrace.
My mother: a solid wailing.

These rocks are the soil
where she kneels
before the whorls of roses,
kneeing before that box
as if it were my father's grave.

The closed anemones
offer their sticky blossoms
as the tide washes toward me.

Small bits of the coast
meet my skin,
scraping my iron onto my knees.”
― Michelle Peñaloza, Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire

“The tide moves me
higher on the crags. My joints crunch
like the mussels
and barnacles beneath my boots.
I walk a tightrope,
from here to another ocean
huddled with archipelagos
where ancestral canoes
set to paddle across the world.
I teeter and my hands catch
the water rising cold.
The sea we come from is much warmer.”
― Michelle Peñaloza, Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire

“The stars above us ask so little,
despite our cells,
coursing with their dust. To err is constant-
someday, all the things we believe will seem ancient.
Perhaps, we'll live more times than once.
Eventually, we will all flee toward the coastline.
The world we ignore most and understand least
will call us back to give up our toenails for tails,
cover our breasts with starfish and numinous scales.
Tell me, how will a cellist sound beneath the sea?”
― Michelle Peñaloza, Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire

“Mistakes are plankton in the Sea of Consequence.”
― Stewart Stafford

“When it comes to marine life, our existence depends upon their existence.”
― June Stoyer

“the unfolding waves of sound are like an underwater orchestra or the endless improvisation of a jazz band. On the Great Barrier Reef, the humpback whales sing the soprano melody. Fish supply the chorus: whooping clownfish, grunting cod, and crunching parrotfish. Sea urchins scrape, resonating like tubas. Percussion is the domain of chattering dolphins and clacking shrimp, who use their pincers to create bubbles that explode with a loud bang. Lobsters rasp their antennae on their shells like washboards. Rainfall, wind, and waves provide the backbeat. To get the best seat, you would have to attend the concert in the middle of the night at the full moon, when fish chorusing typically crests. But you wouldn't necessarily need to have a front row seat: mass fish choruses can be heard up to 50 miles away, and whale sounds resonate for hundreds of miles.”
― Karen Bakker, The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology Is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants

“The Watery Cosmos by Stewart Stafford

O realm of Poseidon,
Dura Mater of all hidden -
Salty soup of subtle plankton,
And breaching whales unbidden.

O friendly ocean,
Looking glass of sky steep -
Shooting stars bioluminescent
Whirlpool galaxies of the deep.

This savage playground,
Cradling hurricane fury,
The birthing pool of the living,
A submerged mass cemetery.

As light fades fast above,
So a lunar-dark seabed rears up,
Slowly enveloping all and sundry,
Surface in a seahorse stirrup.

Seeds from the Amazon,
Passengers of the Atlantic Conveyor,
Nestling on English coasts
Gifts of an aquatic purveyor.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Finally, on October 26, 1981, the Great Barrier Reef received what two of its finest historians, James and Margarita Bowen, have called a 'conservation climax' - World Heritage listing 'as the most impressive marine area in the world.' The Reef met all four of UNESCO's 'natural criteria.' It was an outstanding example of the earth's evolutionary history, an arena of significant ongoing geological processes and biological evolution, a superlative natural phenomenon, and a significant natural habitat containing threatened species of animals or plants with exceptional universal scientific value.”
― Iain McCalman, The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change

“It was clear that the greatest coral diversity in the world was centered on a roughly triangular area within the Central Indo-Pacific, known ever since as 'The Coral Triangle.”
― Iain McCalman, The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change

“. . . most humans were not so good at grasping aspects of nature that couldn't be clearly defined or placed into hierarchies, even though nature's products were 'seldom organized into species at all.' Now [Charlie Vernon] saw that, considered over vast geographical space and long swathes of geological time, coral species were malleable and temporary units, fluidly interlinked by their genes to other units, and forming ever-changing patterns. Corals had to be treated as continua, not as fixed, isolated units.”
― Iain McCalman, The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change

“The sea is not made of water. Creatures are its genes.”
― Adam Nicolson, The Sea Is Not Made of Water: Life Between the Tides

“The underwater world offered not only a sanctuary of beauty but also a profound lesson in resilience and interconnectedness.”
― Amy Tan, Revisiting the Depths: Overcoming Fear and Finding Peace - A Journey of Transformation