Under the Sea-Wind Quotes

“Against this cosmic background the lifespan of a particular plant or animal appears, not as drama complete in itself, but only as a brief interlude in a panorama of endless change.”
― Rachel Carson, Under the Sea-Wind

“In the fish world many things are told by sound waves.”
― Rachel Carson, Under the Sea-Wind

“It soon became evident that there was no single animal—bird, fish, mammal, or any of the sea's lesser creatures—that could live in all the various parts of the sea I proposed to describe. That problem was instantly solved, however, when I realised that the sea itself must be the central character whether I wished it or not; for the sense of the sea, holding the power of life and death over every one of its creatures from the smallest to the largest, would inevitably pervade every page.”
― Rachel Carson, Under the Sea-Wind

“It was written, moreover, out of the deep conviction that the life of the sea is worth knowing. To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and the flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of continents for untold thousands of years, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be. These things were before ever man stood on the shore of the ocean and looked out upon it with wonder; they continue year in, year out, through the centuries and the ages, while man's kingdoms rise and fall.”
― Rachel Carson, Under the Sea-Wind

“To get the feeling of what it is like to be a creature of the sea requires the active exercise of the imagination and the temporary abandonment of many human concepts and human yardsticks. For example, time measured by the clock or the calendar means nothing if you are a shore bird or a fish, but the succession of light and darkness and the ebb and the flow of the tides mean the difference between the time to eat and the time to fast, between the time an enemy can find you easily and the time you are relatively safe. We cannot get the full flavor of marine life—cannot project ourselves vicariously into it—unless we make these adjustments in our thinking.”
― Rachel Carson, Under the Sea-Wind

“Some, perhaps, would fall by the way. Some, old or sick, would drop out of the caravan and creep away into a solitary place to die; others would be picked off by gunners, defying the law for the fancied pleasure of stopping in full flight a brave and fiercely burning life; still others, perhaps, would fall in exhaustion into the sea. But no awareness of possible failure or disaster dwelt in the moving host, flying with sweet pipings through the northern sky. In them burned once more the fever of migration, consuming with its fire all other desires and passions.”
― Rachel Carson, Under the Sea-Wind

“Some, perhaps, would fall by the way. Some, old or sick, would drop out of the caravan and creep away into a solitary place to die; others would be picked off by gunners, defying the law for the fancied pleasure of stopping in full flight a brave and fiercely burning life; still others, perhaps, would fall in exhaustion into the sea...In them burned one more the fever of migration, consuming with its fires all other desires and passions.”
― Rachel Carson, Under the Sea-Wind

“fleas, was alarmed by the turmoil of birds overhead, by the many racing shadows that sped over the sand. By now he was far from his own burrow. When he saw the fisherman walking across the beach he dashed into the surf, preferring this refuge to flight. But a large channel bass was lurking near by, and in a twinkling the crab was seized and eaten. Later in the same day, the bass was attacked by sharks and what was left of it was cast up by the tide onto the sand. There the beach fleas, scavengers of the shore, swarmed over it and devoured it.”
― Rachel Carson, Under the Sea Wind