Dolphins Quotes

“Never trust a species that grins all the time. It’s up to something.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“The fact is that camels are far more intelligent than dolphins. They are so much brighter that they soon realised that the most prudent thing any intelligent animal can do, if it would prefer its descendants not to spend a lot of time on a slab with electrodes clamped to their brains or sticking mines on the bottom of ships or being patronized rigid by zoologists, is to make bloody certain humans don't find out about it. So they long ago plumped for a lifestyle that, in return for a certain amount of porterage and being prodded with sticks, allowed them adequate food and grooming and the chance to spit in a human's eye and get away with it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“The deep roar of the ocean.

The break of waves on farther shores that thought can find.

The silent thunders of the deep.

And from among it, voices calling, and yet not voices, humming trillings, wordlings, and half-articulated songs of thought.

Greetings, waves of greetings, sliding back down into the inarticulate, words breaking together.

A crash of sorrow on the shores of Earth.

Waves of joy on--where? A world indescribably found, indescribably arrived at, indescribably wet, a song of water.

A fugue of voices now, clamoring explanations, of a disaster unavertable, a world to be destroyed, a surge of helplessness, a spasm of despair, a dying fall, again the break of words.

And then the fling of hope, the finding of a shadow Earth in the implications of enfolded time, submerged dimensions, the pull of parallels, the deep pull, the spin of will, the hurl and split of it, the fight. A new Earth pulled into replacement, the dolphins gone.

Then stunningly a single voice, quite clear.

"This bowl was brought to you by the Campaign to Save the Humans. We bid you farewell."

And then the sound of long, heavy, perfectly gray bodies rolling away into an unknown fathomless deep, quietly giggling.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“All right," Shannen says slowly, tucking a lock of dark brown hair behind her ear. "Why did you glue that dolphin upside down?"
Okay, so I'm a little distracted. "He's doing the back stroke.”
― Tera Lynn Childs, Forgive My Fins

“Son of a bitch, I'm sick of these dolphins.”
― Wes Anderson, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

“sounding now/old songs/deep water/no-Great Voices/no-Shark/old songs/new songs”
― Dan Simmons, Hyperion

“I couldn't help wondering where porpoises had learned this game of running on the bows of ships. Porpoises have been swimming in the oceans for seven to ten million years, but they've had human ships to play with for only the last few thousand. Yet nearly all porpoises, in every ocean, catch rides for fun from passing ships; and they were doing it on the bows of Greek triremes and prehistoric Tahitian canoes, as soon as those seacraft appeared. What did they do for fun before ships were invented?
Ken Norris made a field observation one day that suggests the answer. He saw a humpback whale hurrying along the coast of the island of Hawaii, unavoidably making a wave in front of itself; playing in that bow wave was a flock of bottlenose porpoises. The whale didn't seem to be enjoying it much: Ken said it looked like a horse being bothered by flies around its head; however, there was nothing much the whale could do about it, and the porpoises were having a fun time. ”
― Karen Pryor, Lads Before the Wind: Diary of a Dolphin Trainer

“As he [Sir Malcolm Sargeant, conductor of the London Philharmonic] stood in waist deep in the shallows of Whaler's Cove, the littler spinners came drifting over, sleek and dainty, gazing at him curiously with their soft dark eyes. Malcolm was a tactful, graceful man in his movements, and so the spinners were not afraid of him. In moments, he had them all pressing around him, swimming into his arms, and begging him to swim away with them. He looked up, suffused with delight, and remarked to me, 'It's like finding out there really are fairies at the bottom of the garden!”
― Karen Pryor, Lads Before the Wind: Diary of a Dolphin Trainer

“Dolphins are sunflowers of the water. They adore the Sun, they love the ocean and are kind to the land. They remind us to stay playful, keep our inner child safe and stand by loved ones.”
― Reena Doss

“I've known for a long time about dolphins getting caught in nets and drowning there. But knowing is not the same as seeing it with your own eyes. I feel heavy, sad and responsible.”
― Helen Dunmore, The Crossing of Ingo

“Free, wild dolphins are among the most joyous creatures on Earth.”
― Wayne Gerard Trotman

“The swans have returned and so have the dolphins to the Canals of Venice. Nature creates the most beautiful art!”
― Avijeet Das

“I felt all of existence swelling in my veins. Letting my umbrella drop, I flung back my head to open myself to the wind and the suns. It was as though in the course of one night I had cast away the emptiness I had so long held in my arms.”
― Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies

“I just lay on the bed, lost in the wilderness of a completely new world as the clock continued ticking long into the night. It was a world of poetry. It was a world of dolphins where the sea kissed the sky. It was the world of love – a world I had never been at and yet have never felt so familiar.”
― Tshetrim Tharchen, A Play of the Cosmos: Script of the Stars

“To spin like everyone else was the key to fitting in, and if she could only hear the music of the ocean like everyone else, she too would be able to tune in and do it.”
― Laline Paull, Pod

“Dolphins wearing oversized spectacles, dolphins having their teeth cleaned with a toilet brush, dolphins singing a squeaky rendition of “Happy Birthday” — this, the most ubiquitous style of dolphin dressage — probably reveals more about the ailing human spirit and its self-imposed divorce from Mother Nature, than anything about the true nature of cetaceans.”
― William Johnson, The Rose-Tinted Menagerie

“Dolphins work on the reward system,” I explained. “When they’ve had enough to eat, that’s a wrap.” I shrugged.
The director eyed me with a frown, and I realized that he was playing a role himself, the role of the stereotypical director. Hollywood is full of them. Bald-headed, short, and heavyset, he had a white moustache and goatee, an electric megaphone, and—of all things—a gold cigarette holder with a 100 mm filter cigarette in it. The only part of his costume missing was a pith helmet, which was probably optional. “Hmmmm,” he said as though musing to himself, “like actors, then.”
― Richard O'Barry, Behind the Dolphin smile: One Man's Campaign to Protect the World's Dolphins

“Fisher ramped back the engine while I waited, watching as the line of the horizon turned into dots and dashes- and then something slim and black and white lifted out of the water in a soaring arc that looked like nothing but celebration.
"Dolphins," I said, laughing. "It's dolphins."
Hundreds of them, streaking toward us, faster than our boat could ever go. They overtook us, wave after wave of flashing tails and gleaming backs. For what must have been ten minutes we stood, stunned, as the dolphins flowed around our boat. Finally, the last wave passed and we watched as they traveled on, leaving a foaming white trail for us behind them.
"I think we can call that a welcome," Fisher said.”
― Erica Bauermeister, The Scent Keeper

“When it comes to marine life, our existence depends upon their existence.”
― June Stoyer

“In the late 1960s, a park could purchase an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin for about $300. Today, that same species will cost more than $100,000. Indeed, this spike in price has forced zoos to change their entire philosophy. “The attitude was these marine mammals were an expendable commodity,” a former vice president of Sea World confided. “If these animals perished, you’d just go out and replace them. The ease didn’t drive a great deal of research of what they needed to keep them healthy.[...] Yet if “expendability” was the industry’s previous philosophy, “reproduction” came to be its new one.”
― Jason Hribal, Fear of the Animal Planet: The Hidden History of Animal Resistance

“Humans are the only species that destroy anything and everything they do not have a need for or don't understand!”
― June Stoyer

“NOBODY taught me how to swim.
So, I swam and followed the rivers,
hoping that I'd end up in the ocean; the calm seas.
To see some dolphins and the colourful fish.”
― Mitta Xinindlu

“The river that chose me was long
with hard turns, blockages, and fishing traps.
On some days, the river would run dry,
leaving me nowhere but in the middle of hard cracks.”
― Mitta Xinindlu

“But I had a dream that was heavier than my challenges.
So I continued with my journey,
following the stream of the river.
Hoping to reach the ocean; the calm seas.”
― Mitta Xinindlu

“Once upon a time, pink dolphins swam not far from shore. He and Yas would wade out to see the newest calves and swim alongside Mira and Hira--- the names they'd given the sweetest two with matching crooked fins.”
― Aisha Saeed, Forty Words for Love

“There are descriptions of self-mutilations in animals who are locked up in zoos, as well as in laboratory rodents who have been administered stimulating drugs. Cases have also been reported in domestic animals. Some horses, for instance, have shown a tendency to bite themselves, as well as kick and lunge at objects. Among cats and dogs it’s also relatively common to see compulsive self-licking, nibbling, or scratching, which in extreme cases can result in serious injuries…

Somewhat more suggestive cases are of dolphins who have supposedly ended their own lives. At least two cases have been reported, both occurring in dolphins who were captured from the wild and held captive in inadequate conditions. One is dolphin Kathy, the “actor” who portrayed Flipper for the longest period of time on the TV series of the same name. The other is Peter, a dolphin from the 1960s led by John Lilly, which involved the psychedelic drug LSD, zoophilia, and attempts on behalf of the experimenters to communicate verbally and telepathically with the dolphins. Both Kathy and Peter ended their own lives by voluntarily stopping breathing, according to the witnesses.”
― Susana Monsó, Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death

“Ahead, peeking out from the water, something glistened, the color of silver. Mari knew just what it was. She smacked the oars several times against the water, then—- to amuse the girls—- she feigned surprise as several dolphins appeared either side of the gozzo.
They cried in delight as the dolphins surfaced and blew their breath into the air, showering them all with mist. Even Mari laughed; she knew this pod well. They liked to follow the boat a long ways, and she always felt a sense of safety with them so close. When she and Sofia were young, they would lie back and let their hair tumble over the gozzo’s edge. The flash of red against blue caught the dolphins’ attention, and they would nose and nudge their way through the thick masses of hair, playing with it like they might strands of seaweed.
Times like that, the sea was not so loathsome.”
― Sarah Penner, The Amalfi Curse

“Mari leaned over the edge of the boat, softly exclaiming. “Dolphins,” she said. “Three of them.” She reached her hand into the water, letting one of them gently touch the tip of its snout to her fingers. The water around them began to shimmer, sparkling orange and pink. Sunrays, Holmes reasoned, though he couldn’t remember ever seeing the ocean glimmer like this.”
― Sarah Penner, The Amalfi Curse

“Though Conny Gasser repeated his claim to have lost only two dolphins since 1971, even newspaper reports mention three dolphins dying at Lipperswil in 1973 alone. Also, his statement in 1985 that “I have a dolphin here who’s been with me for 14 years,” seems highly implausible since his first dolphins, imported in 1971, are both dead. Flipper’s longevity for instance actually spans at least three separate individuals — a juggling of identities intended to deceive the public. Indeed, since 1971, Gasser has owned at least 36 dolphins, of which 24 have died or cannot be accounted for. It is known that two dolphins were sold to an amusement park in Holland and another two to a dolphinarium in the Far East, that four dolphins are currently held on long-term loan at Fasano, Italy, and another four at Connyland, but this still leaves unaccounted for, Lady No. 1, 2 and 3, Flipper No. 1 and 2, Didi, an unnamed dolphin which died in Manila, Skipper which apparently managed to survive the 1973 winter in Lipperswil when three others died, Bonnie and Clyde imported from Britain in 1980, and Sonny, Blacky, Poco and Chico who were reported to be ill in the summer of 1974. There is also the uncertain fate of Gasser’s orca whale which was sold to an amusement park in Argentina.

Furthermore, according to the Klinowska Report, Gasser also obtained the following dolphins from the UK: Pebbles and Sonny Boy bought from Franklin and Holloway in 1972 — both of which are reported to have died in Switzerland in 1977 — Cleo purchased from Morecambe in 1977 (perhaps the unnamed dolphin that died in Manila?) and Baby, Speedy (No. 1) and Windy purchased from Don Robinson’s Flamingo Park in 1978. Strangely enough — though anything is possible in the dolphin industry — Klinowska speculates that the already ailing animal that Gasser purchased from Windsor in 1972 with a David Taylor health certificate, and which died a year later in Surabaya, Indonesia as Lady (No. 2), was actually a male dolphin called Flipper! Last, but not least, Klinowska cites two anonymous dolphins purchased from the UK by Gasser early in 1973 which died within two months. These are just some of the dolphins once under Gasser’s care that have simply disappeared, thus earning him the title, even in far away England and America, of “Conveyor Belt Gasser” — the dolphins would be alive at one end and dead at the other.”
― William Johnson, The Rose-Tinted Menagerie

“But are the animals trained or brainwashed to become killers? Ironically, it was the neurophysiologist and “New Age Guru” Dr John Lilly who first perfected a technique of implanting electrodes into the brains of unanaesthetised animals to stimulate the “pain and pleasure sectors” of the mind. After butchering monkeys by the dozen at the National Institute of Mental Health, Lilly concluded that judicious manipulation of these brain areas could inspire joy and well-being, or pain, anger and fear. Indeed, by using the electrodes to deliver reward or punishment stimuli the animal could be entirely subordinated to human will. The ingenious Lilly then turned his attention to dolphins, under the pretext of wishing to “communicate” with these intelligent and highly perceptive creatures. To insert electrodes into the brains of the fully-conscious animals, holes were made in the skull with a sharp instrument and a carpenter’s hammer. According to Prof. Giorgio Pilleri, “the dolphin was held down but tried to jump up at every blow — not because of the pain, but because of the unbearable noise produced by the hammering."
Indeed, many of Lilly’s dolphins suffered an agonising death. “Despite disappointment and sadness,” he announced, “we had to go on with our research: our responsibilities lie with finding the truth.” It was not until years later however that a repentant Lilly finally stumbled across that apparently elusive truth. After suffering drug addiction and a mental breakdown, he characterised his research in an entirely different light: “I was running a concentration camp for my friends.”
― William Johnson