The Ocean

“the ocean mist engulfs me, like a lifetime’s friendship honored.”

“My name or yours doesn't matter, we all are mere drops in the ocean of divine consciousness, an extension of Supreme Power'.”

“You are a bubble in the ocean of life that has come to enjoy the glints of the morning light.”

“Father, I am from a different egg than your other children. Think of me as a duckling raised by hens. I am not a domestic bird destined to spend his life in a chicken coop. The water that scares you rejuvenates me. For unlike you I can swim, and swim I shall. The ocean is my homeland. If you are with me, come to the ocean. If not, stop interfering with me and go back to the chicken coop.”

“I've never stared out at the ocean while I've made a record before - that enhances things in a strange way.”

“I grimace, thinking someone should come up with a new phrase for 'I left the ocean without a kiwi-sized chunk of my lower-left butt cheek' to replace the rather nebulous term 'exploratory bite.”

“Because time is a drop in the ocean, and you cannot measure off one drop against another to see which one is bigger, which one is smaller.”

“At some point in the night she had a dream. Or it was possible that she was partially awake, and was only remembering a dream? She was alone among the rocks on a dark coast beside the sea. The water surged upward and fell back languidly, and in the distance she heard surf breaking slowly on a sandy shore. It was comforting to be this close to the surface of the ocean and gaze at the intimate nocturnal details of its swelling and ebbing. And as she listened to the faraway breakers rolling up onto the beach, she became aware of another sound entwined with the intermittent crash of waves: a vast horizontal whisper across the bossom of the sea, carrying an ever-repeated phrase, regular as a lighthouse flashing: Dawn will be breaking soon. She listened a long time: again and again the scarcely audible words were whispered across the moving water. A great weight was being lifted slowly from her; little by little her happiness became more complete, and she awoke. Then she lay for a few minutes marveling the dream, and once again fell asleep.”

“There are many going afar to marvel at the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the long courses of great rivers, the vastness of the ocean, the movements of the stars, yet they leave themselves unnoticed!”

“A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election.”

“I slipped my hand into hers. A strange and unfamiliar feeling ran through me. It felt like the ocean, like sunlight, like horses. Like love. I searched my mind and found the name for it. Joy.”

“Not to be too dramatic about it, that night I slept the sleep of the damned. I dreamt of turrets and craggy ledges where the windswept rain blew in from the ocean with the odor of violets. A pale woman in Elizabethan dress stood beside my bed and whispered in my ear that the bells would ring. An old salt in an oilcloth jacket sat atop a piling, mending nets with an awl, while far out at sea a tine aeroplane winged its way towards the setting sun.”

“We absolutely need to clean up the plastic that's already in the ocean. It won't go away by itself. But we do also need to make sure that no more plastic enters the oceans in the first place. These things should go hand in hand.”

“When I was maybe eight or nine years old, I first learned about the climate crisis in school. My teachers taught me about it and we saw films and pictures of plastic in the ocean and extreme weather events. Those pictures were just stuck in my head; I thought, there is no point in anything.”

“I am not optimistic or pessimistic. I feel that optimism and pessimism are very unbalanced. I am a very hard engineer. I am a mechanic. I am a sailor. I am an air pilot. I don't tell people I can get you across the ocean with my ship unless I know what I'm talking about.”

“Believe in YourselfWhy must we see something to believe in its existence?The wind itself cannot be seen by man, but all have felt it's gentle touch and watched the mighty trees bow as it swept past.We cannot see love yet its nurturing warmth is the essence of our being and sorrow can touch our very soul. For remorse is like a ripple on the ocean, once given it remains only in the heart of the receiver.Yet all of these cannot be seen only felt. Why then do you doubt your self-worth? For though it cannot cast a reflection in the mirror you have only to look in the eyes of those you love toSee it clearly.Prologue To Kiss a KingTo Kiss a King Copyright © 2017 by Julie Brookshier and Robin WoodsAll rights reserved. Except for use in a review, the reproduction or use of this work in whole or in part in any form is forbidden without written permission of one or more of the authors.This is a fictional work. Names, characters, places, and events are merely the product of the authors' imaginations or used fictitiously, purely for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, or undead or any business establishments, events or places past, present, or future, is entirely coincidental.”

“Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean.”

“Things we write down are the fragments shored against our ruins. They outlast us, these scraps of words on paper. Like the detritus from the tsunami washing up on the other side of the ocean, writing is what can be salvaged.”

“Every time I slip into the ocean, it's like going home.”

“Some of them profess to be well acquainted with all the principal waters of the Columbia, with which they assured me these waters had no connection short of the ocean.”