“A full moon sprinkled the black ocean with diamonds, and she could imagine fairies dancing in the silver foam that laced the huge, dark waves.”
― Ocean of Dreams
― Ocean of Dreams
“Time is more complex near the sea than in any other place, for in addition to the circling of the sun and the turning of the seasons, the waves beat out the passage of time on the rocks and the tides rise and fall as a great clepsydra.”
― Tortilla Flat
― Tortilla Flat
“I wish I could describe the feeling of being at sea, the anguish, frustration, and fear, the beauty that accompanies threatening spectacles, the spiritual communion with creatures in whose domain I sail. There is a magnificent intensity in life that comes when we are not in control but are only reacting, living, surviving. I am not a religious man per se. My own cosmology is convoluted and not in line with any particular church or philosphy. But for me, to go to sea is to glimpse the face of God. At sea i am reminded of my insignificance-- of all men's insignificance. It is a wonderful feeling to be so humbled.”
―
―
“Grey rocks, and greyer sea,
And surf along the shore --
And in my heart a name
My lips shall speak no more.
”
―
And surf along the shore --
And in my heart a name
My lips shall speak no more.
”
―
“I have an immoderate passion for water; for the sea, though so vast, so restless, so beyond one's comprehension; for rivers, beautiful, yet fugitive and elusive; but especially for marshes, teeming with all that mysterious life of the creatures that haunt them. A marsh is a whole world within a world, a different world, with a life of its own, with its own permanent denizens, its passing visitors, its voices, its sounds, its own strange mystery.”
― The House of Madame Tellier and Other Stories
― The House of Madame Tellier and Other Stories
Ath’s 2025 Year in Books
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