Sea Monster Quotes

“She hopes she might convince her sea monster that she will not abandon her.”
― Melissa Barbeau, The Luminous Sea

“Fearing I know not what, I turn to look.”
― William Hope Hodgson, A Tropical Horror

“...I am suddenly awakened by a most tremendous uproar away forrad—men's voices shrieking, cursing, praying; but in spite of the terror expressed, so weak and feeble; while in the midst, and at times broken off short with that hellishly suggestive "Glut! Glut!" is the unearthly bellowing of the Thing. Fear incarnate seizes me, and I can only fall on my knees and pray. Too well I know what is happening.”
― William Hope Hodgson, A Tropical Horror

“There can be nothing more frightening in a gigantic monster of many tentacles than intelligence.”
― A.E. Marling, Dream Storm Sea

“Du grumme Søe-Konge, du Trold i det Vand,
Hvad driver dig til, at du render paa Land,
Og lader godvillig dig slagte.”
― Petter Dass, The Trumpet of Nordland

“The cold eyes watched her and she saw an intelligence. Like the unicorn. Perhaps, like the unicorn, it slipped dreamlike between the mortal world and the Lost Lands.
She stepped forward and took hold of the spear and pulled it from the sea-dragon’s mouth. It had not gone in so deeply. The blood flowed out suddenly in a cold silver wave, smelling of the sea. Ichor covered her palm, her silk sleeve. Spattered her face. She tasted it, felt it sparkling in her eyelashes. She let the spear fall.
The serpent flicked its tongue at her again, and when she focused her eyes, the shadows had become a terrible jumble. As though the blood on her skin had opened her senses to a truth her mind could not grasp: dawn and day and dusk and night all tangled together. There were layers in the world.
“Can you go home?” she whispered.
How had the light been when the monster came? Silver-lucent, like that upon the noonday sea. That light was still there, mixed with the rest, clear to her suddenly opened eyes.
It set the sea-drake glimmering. Anne smelled salt. All around her was the silver of the sea, another daylight altogether. It felt as though she could take one step and the rest of it would be real: cold water and wind; she would be somewhere else. Her heart was racing. A spike of pain went through her head.
“Go,” Anne whispered to the sea-drake, covered in its blood.
It turned and plunged back into the light of its own day. A gout of water mingled with the blood on her, and when the wave subsided, the sea-drake was gone.
Anne's knees gave way, her dress drenched in silver blood and the world wavering like water in her hazy vision, a wild mingling of daylight and starlight and winter shadows, as though all the days and nights of the world were happening at once and she had just been granted the eyes to see them.”
― Katherine Arden, The Unicorn Hunters