“No water, no life. No blue, no green.”

It’s a fact of life that there will be oil spills, as long as oil is moved from place to place, but we must have provisions to deal with them, and a capability that is commensurate with the size of the oil shipments.

I would love to slip into the skin of a fish and know what it’s like to be one. They have senses that I can only dream about.

Ocean acidification – the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is turning the oceans increasingly acid.

My first encounter with the ocean was on the Jersey Shore when I was three years old and I got knocked over by a wave.

There’s something missing about how we’re informing the youngsters coming along about what matters in the world. We teach them the numbers and the letters, but we fail to communicate the importance of our connection to the living world.

Hold up a mirror and ask yourself what you are capable of doing, and what you really care about. Then take the initiative – don’t wait for someone else to ask you to act.

Protecting vital sources of renewal – unscathed marshes, healthy reefs, and deep-sea gardens – will provide hope for the future of the Gulf, and for all of us.

When I first ventured into the Gulf of Mexico in the 1950s, the sea appeared to be a blue infinity too large, too wild to be harmed by anything that people could do.

I want everybody to go jump in the ocean to see for themselves how beautiful it is, how important it is to get acquainted with fish swimming in the ocean, rather than just swimming with lemon slices and butter.

Bottom trawling is a ghastly process that brings untold damage to sea beds that support ocean life.

America gains most when individuals have great freedom to pursue personal goals without undue government interference.

Ice ages have come and gone. Coral reefs have persisted.

A lumberman will look at a forest and see so many board feet of lumber. I see a living city.

I have lots of heroes: anyone and everyone who does whatever they can to leave the natural world better than they found it.

I have heard endlessly that fish are so resilient that there is no way that you could exterminate a species. We are learning otherwise.

Our insatiable appetite for fossil fuels and the corporate mandate to maximize shareholder value encourages drilling without taking into account the costs to the ocean, even without major spills.

My eyes went blank, and I stared off, and the music started. It was raining, and the sun was shining at the same time.

You really have to count your blessings and you have to make a decided effort to not get seduced by the blues.

I got an attitude, that’s rude because I walked over Elvis’ grave in some blue suede shoes.

That narrow stretch of sand knows nothing in the world better than it does the white waves that whip it , caress it , collapse on to it .

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.

People like Clyde McPhatter who came out of the black churches – like Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin – were all church singers who became great pop singers because gospel singing is very close to the blues.

And what does the beach knows of depths, the cold, the currents just there, where-do you see it? – Where the water turns a deeper blue.

I don’t believe in inspiration that arrives like a bolt from the blue … It seems to me that the more motivated I am by what I film, the more objectively I film.