I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.

And to our age’s drowsy blood / Still shouts the inspiring sea.

The Mediterranean has the colors of a mackerel, changeable I mean. You don’t always know if it is green or violet—you can’t even say it’s blue, because the next moment the changing light has taken on a tinge of pink or gray.

But look, our seas are what we make of them, full of fish or not, opaque or transparent, red or black, high or smooth, narrow or bankless—and we are ourselves sea, sand, coral, seaweed, beaches, tides, swimmers, children, waves.

Seafarers go to sleep in the evening not knowing whether they will find themselves at the bottom of the sea the next morning.

I never even saw the use of the sea. Many a sad heart has it caused, and many a sick stomach has it occasioned! The boldest sailor climbs on board with a heavy soul and leaps on land with a light spirit.

I am ill every time it blows hard, and nothing but my enthusiastic love for the profession keeps me one hour at sea.

The sole business of a seaman onshore who has to go to sea again is to take as much pleasure as he can.

Without a decisive naval force, we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious.

Alone, alone, all, all alone, / Alone on a wide, wide sea!

The sea yields action to the body, meditation to the mind, the world to the world, all parts thereof to each part, by this art of arts—navigation.

He that commands the sea is at great liberty and may take as much and as little of the war as he will.

Why is a ship under sail more poetical than a hog in a high wind? The hog is all nature, the ship is all art.