“I love my Force Fins, which are the kind of fins Special Forces use and really are adapted from the fins of fish. They’re very efficient.”

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

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

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.

Look at the bark of a redwood, and you see moss.

We did not want, from garbage and nuclear wastes to sludge from sewage to entire ships that had reached the end of their useful life.

My mother was known as the ‘bird lady’ of the neighborhood.

Since the middle of the 20th century, more has been learnt about the ocean than during all preceding human history; at the same time, more has been lost.

Photosynthetic organisms in the sea yield most of the oxygen in the atmosphere, take up and store vast amounts of carbon dioxide, shape planetary chemistry, and hold the planet steady.

All through college, I had frequently been the only girl in a science class – which wasn’t such a bad deal.

They are so beautiful, a pair is in the Museum of Modern Art. The set I have are ruby red. I call them my ruby flippers.

Every fish fertilizes the water in a way that generates the plankton that ultimately leads back into the food chain, but also yields oxygen, grabs carbon – it’s a part of what makes the ocean function and what makes the planet function.

In fact, a person always finds when he begins to practice meditation that all sorts of problems are brought out. Any hidden aspects of your personality are brought out into the open, for the simple reason that for the first time you are allowing yourself to see your state of mind as it is.

The Dark Side of the Moon is a fine album with a textural and conceptual richness that not only invites, but demands involvement.

For me, I find that even though I’ve accomplished a few things in my life, looking back on accomplishments doesn’t give me a sense of satisfaction.