Whelks Quotes

“Aristocracy means ‘rule of the best’, and I can’t think of any company in which Chingford would be counted as best, including the average gaol. Yet the hereditary principle demands we grant power, authority, and vast swathes of land to a man who couldn’t run a whelk stall if you gave him a copy of How To Run A Whelk Stall with corners turned down to mark the good bits.”
― K.J. Charles, Subtle Blood

“There was nothing I could do but stare and stare at the whelks.

Whelks are strange and comforting.

They have no notion of community life and they breed very quietly.

But they have a strong sense of personal dignity.

Even lying face down in a tray of vinegar, there is something noble about a whelk.

Which cannot be said for everybody.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

“The only living things in sight
were the little sandpipers & the black-headed laughing gulls,

through the wrack line glittered with flotsam: waxy garlands
we called sea snakes--whose pouches contained hundreds of tiny whelks--

& the cracked armature of the prehistoric horseshoe crabs, barnacles
fastened to their burnished backs & tails.”
― Kathleen Graber, The River Twice: Poems