“It was all a part of being trustworthy—of being a piece of sea glass. High tides, low tides, storms, sand and mistakes all contributed to the polishing process. Though difficult to endure at the time, the demanding elements helped smooth the surface, transforming one into a better person, not worse. A person who learned from the harsh environment, who knew the storm would end, and who felt confident she would still be in one piece.”

“Love. The wide sea that one word conjures up, all the currents and tides and storms and oily swells of it.”

“Writing is an expression of the writer's own peculiar personality, could not help being so. Yet in reading great works one feels that the finished piece transcends the personal. All writers great and small must sometimes have felt that they have become part of what they wrote even more than it still remains a part of them.”

“A person who believes, as she did, that things fit: that there is a whole of which one is a part, and that in being a part one is whole: such a person has no desire whatever, at any time, to play God. Only those who have denied their being yearn to play at it.”

“Not that I lack confidence in the outcome," Ferrin said, "but would you consider entrusting the piece of my neck to somebody who is not about to confront one of the most deadly beings in the world?”

“Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night.”