Every grain of sand or silt carried out by the rivers and deposited at sea displaces a corresponding amount of water. - Rachel Carson

It soon became evident that there was no single animal — bird, fish, mammal, or any of the sea's lesser creatures — that could live in all the various parts of the sea I proposed to describe. That problem was instantly solved, however, when I realised that the sea itself must be the central character whether I wished it or not; for the sense of the sea, holding the power of life and death over every one of its creatures from the smallest to the largest, would inevitably pervade every page.

We know how to split the atom, and how to use its energy in peace and war, and so we proceed with preparations to do so, as if acting under some blind compulsion;

Instead of always trying to impose our will on Nature we should sometimes be quiet and listen to what she has to tell us. If we did so I am sure we would gain a new perspective on our own feverish lives. We might even see the folly and the madness of a world in which half of mankind is busily preparing to destroy the other half and to reduce our whole planet to radioactive ashes in the doing.