Cal Barton

“What," he asked into the silence, "is her name?”
― Anthony Doerr, The Shell Collector

“Ignorance was, in the end, and in so many ways, a privilege: to find a shell, to feel it, to understand only on some unspeakable level why it bothered to be so lovely. What joy he found in that, what utter mystery.
Every six hours the tides plowed shelves of beauty onto the beaches of the world, and here he was, able to walk out into it, thrust his hands into it, spin a piece of it between his fingers. To gather up seashells--each one an amazement--to know their names, to drop them into a bucket: this was what filled his life, what overfilled it.
Some mornings, moving through the lagoon, Tumaini splashing comfortably ahead, he felt a nearly irresistible urge to bow down.”
― Anthony Doerr, The Shell Collector

“In August she went to the river to watch her husband cast flies with a client, the loops lifting from his rod like a spell cast over the water.”
― Anthony Doerr, The Hunter's Wife

“That's what death is, Danny thought: wanting to talk to someone and not being able to.”
― Jennifer Egan, The Keep