Shells Quotes

“And then, some morning in the second week, the mind wakes, comes to life again. Not in a city sense—no—but beach-wise. It begins to drift, to play, to turn over in gentle careless rolls like those lazy waves on the beach. One never knows what chance treasures these easy unconscious rollers may toss up, on the smooth white sand of the conscious mind; what perfectly rounded stone, what rare shell from the ocean floor. Perhaps a channeled whelk, a moon shell, or even an argonaut.”
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

“Wolves in shells are crueler than stray ones.”
― Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

“Actually, however, life begins less by reaching upward, than by turning upon itself. But what a marvelously insidious, subtle image of life a coiling vital principle would be! And how many dreams the leftward oriented shell, or one that did not conform to the rotation of its species, would inspire!”
― Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

“I'm addicted to the entire planet. I don't want to leave it. I want to get down into it. I want to say hello. On the beach, I could have stopped all day long and looked at those damned shells, looked for all the messages that come not in bottles but in shells...”
― John McPhee, Encounters with the Archdruid

“It's bright pinky-white sand was made entirely of shell dust, like star dust, among which, if you sifted it with your fingers, were infant shells as small as the grains but perfectly shaped. Scattered over the surface were larger shells of many kinds and shapes, some as delicate as flower petals, others, though small, built to withstand any battering sea.”
― L.M. Boston, The Sea Egg

“Zoe let the poetry flow over her, like shadows on water, sunlight against stone: timeworn words shaped like stars, like shells, like the ruins of lost temples, soft as the breaths of mystics.”
― Christine Brodien-Jones, The Glass Puzzle

“Well, I thought, climbing slowly out of the slit trench, the shells will catch us above ground now. But if you have to go, you have to go. F Company’s in trouble, and we have to help them. We’re in reserve, so we have to go. And if we’re shelled, we’re shelled. There is absolutely nothing we can do about it.”
― David Kenyon Webster, Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich

“The sea air and society were meant to coax her out of her shell before her season commenced.
It didn't quite work that way.
Instead, Maddie spent most of those weeks with shells. Collecting them on the beach, sketching them in her notebook, and trying not to think about parties or balls or gentlemen.”
― Tessa Dare, When a Scot Ties the Knot

“But every stroke of the brush, every lyric, every word whispered between human beings resulted from the pain of being alone. In our haunted heads, our imperfect bodies. Islands carved from clay and bone, our skulls like shells full of mist.”
― Leah Raeder, Cam Girl

“They were beautiful shells, as white as the surf in the sea. When you held one up to your ear you could hear the sound of your best friend talking to you, even if she was a thousand miles away.”
― Alice Hoffman, Aquamarine

“The rest of the small half-moon beach was covered in a thick layer of broken shells, a jumble of crustacean parts, and crab claws. Shells the best secret-keepers of all.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“She had arrived in a gown of black silk beneath a cage of fish bones and shells, her deep aquamarine hair caught up in a crown of coral.”
― Holly Black, How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“I noticed chartreuse lichen scabbing the rocks, the lick and suck of tide against sea-smoothed stones, how every single one of the shells in the bay was different; white limpet shells and ear-shaped mussel shells; kelp fronds, the ones like bronze ribbons, and cream ones like bandages, their stems like bone joints; and, of course, the ocean, that perpetual shapeshifter: one day a disc of hammered gold, the next wild and rearing, like a thousand white horses. I noticed how the ocean had moods, just like a person.”
― C J Cooke

“All I can say to people who hate their mothers for giving birth to them is "get the fuck out of your scaredy shells and kiss the world".”
― Jay Woodman

“Avevano sempre raccontato a Julian che se ascolti una conchiglia senti il mare, allora lui sfregava i sassi vicino alle orecchie, così non sentiva niente.”
― Eleonora C. Caruso, Tutto chiuso tranne il cielo

“Now in her hands, the final copy- every brushstroke, every carefully thought-out color, every word of the natural histories, printed in a book. There were also drawings of the creatures who live inside- how they eat, how they move, how they mate- because people forget about creatures who live in shells.
She touched the pages and remembered each shell and the story of finding it, where it lay on the beach, the season, the sunrise. A family album.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“Celina surveyed her inventory. Candied lemon and orange slices dipped in chocolate, roasted coffee beans enrobed in dark chocolate, and coconut confections enveloped in milk chocolate. Petite Coeurs with a crème fraîche and raspberry liqueur filling, rum-spiked caramels covered in milk chocolate, bittersweet espresso truffles studded with crushed Sicilian pistachios.
For her seaside fantasy collection, the antique cast iron molds had yielded whimsical chocolate shells and seahorses. Within clam shells formed from chocolate were nestled pearls of white chocolate. Among the delicacies were her trademark stars: creamy milk chocolate, dark chocolate filled with peppermint-flavored crème fraîche, and white chocolate iced with candied lemon peel.”
― Jan Moran, The Chocolatier

“I once watched a small hermit crab crawl out of its shell and into a larger one nearby. Maybe we are no different. There were those before us and there will be some after us. All we can do is cultivate what is given to us. Maybe our lot in this life is to leave our shells better than when we found them so that the next soul will flourish here.”
― Jennifer Arnett, Day One: A Novella

“It was as big as a box kite and mounted on a pole, gesticulating wildly with moving arms, vanes, wheels, and propellers larger and small. I'd never seen it. It was all different colors. It didn't resemble anything in particular, except at the top, where there was a woman's head. Attached to her hair were three reflectors. Shells and chimes hung around her neck. Even with half the moving parts stuck, a gust blowing through it set off a flurry of fluttering and shimmering and ringing, as if a flock of exotic birds was taking flight.”
― Paul Fleischman

“We made a fire and cooked the clams, adding some wild onions and sea asparagus for flavor, and ate out of bowls made of abalone shells, with mussel shells for spoons and berries for dessert.”
― Erica Bauermeister, The Scent Keeper

“My shell collection

Here are my shells, orderly to the eye, mysterious to the mind. Some are rough and grainy, others are soft and pearly. Mine are all empty, but out in the sea there are empty ones too – as many as there are full. When the creatures emerge, they leave part of themselves behind. That is why I think of these spirals as living though they are asleep in their forms.”
― Sarah Emily Miano, Van Rijn

“Only shells collected from the sea could be crafted into necklaces to soothe anxious hearts. Every day, people crossed the threshold of their home. They settled into the nook of the guest room. They wept onto carefully curated shells, which would later be sanded and shaped into stars and worn as necklaces to soothe their suffering. There was an alchemy between the sea and the shells that her family had melded. Before her mother, the work had been her grandmother's. Before that, her grandmother's mother. Eight generations of Khanani women winding their way down to--- one day--- Yas.
She'd once eagerly painted each star before it left their home. Delicate birds. Flowers. Yas had loved the work. The art of catching and cutting and sanding and smoothing.”
― Aisha Saeed, Forty Words for Love

“Blue!" The boy shrieked.
Yas followed the toddler's pointing finger. The ocean around them rippled with their movement. The water was not pink. Nor lavender. It did not glimmer. Pooling in swirls around her ankles were ribbons of aqua and teal. Threads of silver and gold.
"Raf?" she whispered. "You see it, don't you?"
"I... Y-yes, I do."
From the shoreline, Ernie stared with his jaw parted at the ripples of color. Not bothering to roll up his pajama bottoms, he walked into the water, the sea sloshing around his feet. Spirals of daffodil yellow puddled around his ankles.
"What... what is happening?" he whispered.
Others stepped into the water. They winced at the shards pricking at their feet.
The shards. Yas kneeled in the water. She pulled out a jagged, cracked shell fragment from the ocean floor and cradled it in her palm---the salt water dripping from it trailed rivulets of color down her hands, which glimmered beneath the still-dark sky.
"It's the shells." Yas leaned down and scooped out more. She raised her hand and opened her palm---the crowd gasped as gold and red trailed down her arm.
"The color is..." Oscar's voice trailed off. "It's leaking out of the broken shells?”
― Aisha Saeed, Forty Words for Love

“Browsing in a bookshop is a lot like collecting shells on a beach on a really good day. I want all of them.”
― Louise Nealon, Snowflake