“Change isn't always for the worst; the shell that forms around a piece of sand looks to some people like an irritation., and to others, like a pearl.”

“There is a curious thing that happens with the passage of time: a calcification of character... Change isn't always for the worst; the shell that forms around a piece of sand looks to some people like an irritation, and to others, like a pearl.”

“Does love always form, like a pearl, around the hardened bits of life?”

“The most extraordinary thing about the oyster is this. Irritation gets into his shell. He does not like them. But when he cannot get rid of them he uses the irritation to do the lovelist thing an oyster ever has the chance to do. If there are irritations in our lives today, there is only one prescription: make a pearl. It may have to be a pearl of patience, but…make a pearl.-In the Treasure Chest, ed. Charles L. Wallis”

“...like a grain of sand that gets into an oyster's shell. What if the grain doesn't want to become a pearl? Is it ever asked to climb out quietly and take up its old position as a bit of ocean floor?”

“Oh, her beauty--the tender maid! Its brilliance gives light like lamps to one travelling in the dark.She is a pearl hidden in a shell of hair as black as jet,A pearl for which Thought dives and remains unceasingly in the deeps of that ocean.He who looks upon her deems her to be a gazelle of the sand-hills, because of her shapely neck and the loveliness of her gestures.”