Scott O'Dell > Quotes

“After that summer, after being friends with Won-a-nee and her young, I never killed another otter. I had an otter cape for my shoulders, which I used until it wore out, but never again did I make a new one. Nor did I ever kill another cormorant for its beautiful feathers, though they have long, think necks and make ugly sounds when they talk to each other. Nor did I kill seals for their sinews, using instead kelp to bind the things that needed it. Nor did I kill another wild dog, nor did I try to speak another sea elephant.
Ulape would have laughed at me, and other would have laughed, too -- my father most of all. Yet this is the way I felt about the animals who had become my friends and those who were not, bu in time could be. If Ulape and my father had come back and laughed, and all the other had come back and laughed, still I would have felt the same way, for animals and birds are like people, too, though they do no talk the same or do the same things. Without them the earth would be an unhappy place.”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“More than anything, it was the blue dolphins that took me back home.”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“Below me Rontu was running along the cliffs barking at the screaming gulls. Pelicans were chattering as they finished the blue water. But suddenly I thought of Tutok, and the island seemed very quiet.”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“They were black like a lizard's and very large and, like the eyes of a lizard, could sometimes look sleepy.”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“:...For animals and birds are like people, too, though they do not talk the same or do the same things. Without them the earth would be an unhappy place.”
― Scott O'Dell

“The morning was fresh from the rain. The smell of the tide pools was strong. Sweet odors came from the wild grasses in the ravines and from the sand plants on the dunes. I sang as I went down the trail to the beach and along the beach to the sandspit. I felt that the day was an omen of good fortune. It was a good day to begin my new home.”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“Many of our tribe went to the cliff each night to count the number killed during the day. They counted the dead otter and thought of the beads and other things that each pelt meant. But I never went to the cove and whenever I saw the hunters with their long spears skimming over the water, I was angry, for these animals were my friends. It was fun to see them playing or sunning themselves among the kelp. It more fun than the thought of beads to wear around my neck.”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“For a long time I called it Otter as I had called Rontu, Dog. Then I decided to give the otter a name. The name was Mon-a-nee, which means Little Boy with Large Eyes.”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“I REMEMBER the day the Aleut ship came to our island. At first it seemed like a small shell afloat on the sea. Then it grew larger and was a gull with folded wings. At last in the rising sun it became what it really was—a red ship with two red sails. My brother and I had gone to the head of a canyon that winds down to a little harbor which is called Coral Cove. We had gone to gather roots that grow there in the spring. My brother Ramo was only a little boy half my age, which was twelve. He was small for one who had lived so many suns and moons, but quick as a cricket. Also foolish as a cricket when he was excited. For this reason and because I wanted him to help me gather roots and not go running off, I said nothing about the shell I saw or the gull with folded wings. I went on digging in the brush with my pointed stick as though nothing at all were happening on the sea. Even when I knew for sure that the gull was a ship with two red sails. But Ramo’s eyes missed little in the world. They were black like a lizard’s and very large and, like the eyes of a lizard, could sometimes look sleepy. This was the time when they saw the most. This was the way they looked now. They were half-closed, like those of a lizard lying on a rock about to flick out its tongue to catch a fly. “The sea is smooth,” Ramo said. “It is a flat stone without any scratches.” My brother liked to pretend that one thing was another. “The sea is not a stone without scratches,” I said. “It is water and no waves.” “To me it is a blue stone,” he said. “And far away on the edge of it is a small cloud which sits on the stone.” “Clouds do not sit on stones. On blue ones or black ones or any kind of stones.” “This one does.” “Not on the sea,” I said. “Dolphins sit there, and gulls, and cormorants, and otter, and whales too, but not clouds.” “It is a whale, maybe.” Ramo was standing on one foot and then the other, watching the ship coming, which he did not know was a ship because he had never seen one. I had never seen one either, but I knew how they looked because I had been told. “While you gaze at the sea,” I said, “I dig roots. And it is I who will eat them and you who will not.” Ramo began to punch at the earth with his stick, but as the ship came closer, its sails showing red through the morning mist, he kept watching it, acting all the time as if he were not. “Have you ever seen a red whale?” he asked. “Yes,” I said, though I never had. “Those I have seen are gray.” “You are very young and have not seen everything that swims in the world.” Ramo picked up a root and was about to drop it into the basket. Suddenly his mouth opened wide and then closed again. “A canoe!” he cried. “A great one, bigger than all of our canoes together. And red!” A canoe or a ship, it did not matter to Ramo. In the very next breath he tossed the root in the air and was gone, crashing through the brush, shouting as he went. I kept on gathering roots, but my hands trembled as I dug in the earth, for I was more excited than my brother. I knew that it was a ship there on the”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“a league,”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“My brother Ramo was only a little boy half my age, which was twelve. He was small for one who had lived so many suns and moons, but quick as a cricket.”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“You have in your hand the Pearl of the Universe. The Paragon of Pearls. The great Pearl of Heaven!”
― Scott O'Dell, The Black Pearl

“It was a hard task catching fish every day, especially if the wind was blowing and the waves were high. Once when I could catch only two and dropped them into the pool, Mon-a-nee ate them quickly and waited for more. When he found that was all I had he swam around in circles, looking at me reproachfully. The”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“Everyone in our tribe had two names, the real one which was secret and was seldom used, and one which was common, for if people use your secret name it becomes worn out and loses its magic.”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“Matasaip who”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“beckoned”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“benevolence once they have nudged against you and invited your aff ection with their smooth, glistening smiles. Rereading Island of the Blue Dolphins, I could”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“The Island of the Blue Dolphins was my home; I had no other. It would be my home until the white men returned in their ship. But even if they came soon, before next summer, I could not live without a roof or a place to store my food.”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“Our island is two leagues long and one league wide, and if you were standing on one of the hills that rise in the middle of it, you would think that it looked like a fish. Like a dolphin lying on its side, with its tail pointing toward the sunrise, its nose pointing to the sunset, and its fins making reefs and the rocky ledges along the shore. Whether someone did stand there on the low hills in the days when the earth was new and, because of its shape, called it the Island of the Blue Dolphins, I do not know.”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“animals and birds are like people, too, though they do not talk the same or do the same things. Without them the earth would be an unhappy place.”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“old people,”
― Scott O'Dell, Sing Down the Moon

“The name I thought of was Rontu, which means in our language Fox Eyes.”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“but now”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“At that moment I walked across the deck and, though many hands tried to hold me back, flung myself into the sea.”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“He spoke again, slowly this time, and though his words sounded the same as before and meant nothing to me, they now seemed sweet. They were the sound of a human voice. There is no sound like this in all the world.”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“Dolphins are animals of good omen. It made me happy to have them swimming around the canoe, and though my hands had begun to bleed from the chafing of the paddle, just watching them made me forget the pain. I was very lonely before they appeared, but now I felt that I had friends with me and did not feel the same.”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“No dependas de los demás, ni de mí, ni de tus maestros de la escuela, ni de nadie. Escucha, y piensa sobre lo que has oído, pero depende de ti misma.”
― Scott O'Dell

“This is the way I felt about the animals who had become my friends and those who were not, but in time could be...for animals and birds are like people too, though they do not talk the same or do the same things. Without them the earth would be an unhappy place.”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“happened once in a long time, it was”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

“Dolphins”
― Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins