“These shells are just like the people of the world, Okachan,' Manjiro said, speaking not just to his mother, but to everyone. 'They come from many places. They come in many different colors and sizes. But they are all beautiful.”

“But hunger, like food, comes in many shapes and colors.”

“There's so many different worlds, so many different suns. And we have just one world, but we live in different ones.”

“After all, when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same language even when they speak the same language?”

“Angels come in many shapes and sizes, and most of them are not invisible.”

“I picked up scallop shells in diverse colors and sizes — warm reds and yellows; cool, stippled grays — and reflected on the diversity of God’s creation, and what might be the use and meaning of his making so many varieties of a single thing. If he created scallops simply for our nourishment, why paint each shell with delicate and particular colors? And why, indeed, trouble making so many different things to nourish us, when in the Bible we read that a simple manna fed the Hebrews day following day? It came to me then that God must desire us to use each of our senses, to take delight in the varied tastes and sights and textures of his world.”