Channeled whelk, I put you down again, but you have set my mind on a journey, up an inwardly winding spiral staircase of thought. Gift from the Sea, 1955.

 

The world today does not understand, in either man or woman, the need to be alone. Ibid.

 

Moon shell, who named you? Some intuitive woman I like to think. Ibid.

 

Perhaps this is the most important thing for me to take back from beach-living; simply the memory that each cycle of the tide is valid; each cycle of the wave is valid; each cycle of a relationship is valid. And my shells/ I can sweep them all into my pocket. They are only there to remind me that the sea recedes and returns eternally. Ibid.

 

The collector walks with blinders on; he sees nothing but the prize. In fact, the acquisitive instinct is incompatible with true appreciation of beauty. Ibid.

 

America, which has the most glorious present still existing in the world today, hardly stops to enjoy it, in her insatiable appetite for the future. Ibid.