“It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire.”

“Bad taste makes more millionaires than good taste.”

“Claire: Once your baby arrives, the world is no more the same than you are. Because from our very bodies we add to the collective human destiny.”

“Normal people have rock collections, shell collections, key ring collections and stamp collections. (The Captain had even known somebody with a letterbox collection.) But a people collection? That had to be the most bizarre one he'd come across. Not to mention the most unethical.”

“Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.”

“Perhaps, she thought, people were more like ammonites than one would suppose. Perhaps they too built shells on a consistent, unchanging factor—some quality or circumstance established in their youth. Each chamber in the shell just an enlargement of the previous. Growing year after year, until they spiraled around and locked themselves in place.”