Island Of The Blue Dolphins Quotes

More than anything, it was the blue dolphins that took me back home.

Below me Rontu was running along the cliffs barking at the screaming gulls. Pelicans were chattering as they finished the blue water. But suddenly I thought of Tutok, and the island seemed very quiet.

Now, suddenly, I was the kind of girl who felt true physical pain when asked to put down a book at the dinner table, who asked friends over and ignored them to finish Island of the Blue Dolphins for the fifth time.

They were black like a lizard's and very large and, like the eyes of a lizard, could sometimes look sleepy.

:...For animals and birds are like people, too, though they do not talk the same or do the same things. Without them the earth would be an unhappy place.

For a long time I called it Otter as I had called Rontu, Dog. Then I decided to give the otter a name. The name was Mon-a-nee, which means Little Boy with Large Eyes.

After that summer, after being friends with Won-a-nee and her young, I never killed another otter. I had an otter cape for my shoulders, which I used until it wore out, but never again did I make a new one. Nor did I ever kill another cormorant for its beautiful feathers, though they have long, think necks and make ugly sounds when they talk to each other. Nor did I kill seals for their sinews, using instead kelp to bind the things that needed it. Nor did I kill another wild dog, nor did I try to speak another sea elephant. Ulape would have laughed at me, and other would have laughed, too -- my father most of all. Yet this is the way I felt about the animals who had become my friends and those who were not, bu in time could be. If Ulape and my father had come back and laughed, and all the other had come back and laughed, still I would have felt the same way, for animals and birds are like people, too, though they do no talk the same or do the same things. Without them the earth would be an unhappy place.

The morning was fresh from the rain. The smell of the tide pools was strong. Sweet odors came from the wild grasses in the ravines and from the sand plants on the dunes. I sang as I went down the trail to the beach and along the beach to the sandspit. I felt that the day was an omen of good fortune. It was a good day to begin my new home.

a league,

Many of our tribe went to the cliff each night to count the number killed during the day. They counted the dead otter and thought of the beads and other things that each pelt meant. But I never went to the cove and whenever I saw the hunters with their long spears skimming over the water, I was angry, for these animals were my friends. It was fun to see them playing or sunning themselves among the kelp. It more fun than the thought of beads to wear around my neck.

Matasaip who

My brother Ramo was only a little boy half my age, which was twelve. He was small for one who had lived so many suns and moons, but quick as a cricket.

Everyone in our tribe had two names, the real one which was secret and was seldom used, and one which was common, for if people use your secret name it becomes worn out and loses its magic.

benevolence once they have nudged against you and invited your aff ection with their smooth, glistening smiles. Rereading Island of the Blue Dolphins, I could

It was a hard task catching fish every day, especially if the wind was blowing and the waves were high. Once when I could catch only two and dropped them into the pool, Mon-a-nee ate them quickly and waited for more. When he found that was all I had he swam around in circles, looking at me reproachfully. The

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beckoned

animals and birds are like people, too, though they do not talk the same or do the same things. Without them the earth would be an unhappy place.

but now

Our island is two leagues long and one league wide, and if you were standing on one of the hills that rise in the middle of it, you would think that it looked like a fish. Like a dolphin lying on its side, with its tail pointing toward the sunrise, its nose pointing to the sunset, and its fins making reefs and the rocky ledges along the shore. Whether someone did stand there on the low hills in the days when the earth was new and, because of its shape, called it the Island of the Blue Dolphins, I do not know.

I REMEMBER the day the Aleut ship came to our island. At first it seemed like a small shell afloat on the sea. Then it grew larger and was a gull with folded wings. At last in the rising sun it became what it really was—a red ship with two red sails. My brother and I had gone to the head of a canyon that winds down to a little harbor which is called Coral Cove. We had gone to gather roots that grow there in the spring. My brother Ramo was only a little boy half my age, which was twelve. He was small for one who had lived so many suns and moons, but quick as a cricket. Also foolish as a cricket when he was excited. For this reason and because I wanted him to help me gather roots and not go running off, I said nothing about the shell I saw or the gull with folded wings. I went on digging in the brush with my pointed stick as though nothing at all were happening on the sea. Even when I knew for sure that the gull was a ship with two red sails. But Ramo’s eyes missed little in the world. They were black like a lizard’s and very large and, like the eyes of a lizard, could sometimes look sleepy. This was the time when they saw the most. This was the way they looked now. They were half-closed, like those of a lizard lying on a rock about to flick out its tongue to catch a fly. “The sea is smooth,” Ramo said. “It is a flat stone without any scratches.” My brother liked to pretend that one thing was another. “The sea is not a stone without scratches,” I said. “It is water and no waves.” “To me it is a blue stone,” he said. “And far away on the edge of it is a small cloud which sits on the stone.” “Clouds do not sit on stones. On blue ones or black ones or any kind of stones.” “This one does.” “Not on the sea,” I said. “Dolphins sit there, and gulls, and cormorants, and otter, and whales too, but not clouds.” “It is a whale, maybe.” Ramo was standing on one foot and then the other, watching the ship coming, which he did not know was a ship because he had never seen one. I had never seen one either, but I knew how they looked because I had been told. “While you gaze at the sea,” I said, “I dig roots. And it is I who will eat them and you who will not.” Ramo began to punch at the earth with his stick, but as the ship came closer, its sails showing red through the morning mist, he kept watching it, acting all the time as if he were not. “Have you ever seen a red whale?” he asked. “Yes,” I said, though I never had. “Those I have seen are gray.” “You are very young and have not seen everything that swims in the world.” Ramo picked up a root and was about to drop it into the basket. Suddenly his mouth opened wide and then closed again. “A canoe!” he cried. “A great one, bigger than all of our canoes together. And red!” A canoe or a ship, it did not matter to Ramo. In the very next breath he tossed the root in the air and was gone, crashing through the brush, shouting as he went. I kept on gathering roots, but my hands trembled as I dug in the earth, for I was more excited than my brother. I knew that it was a ship there on the

Our island is two leagues long and one league wide, and if you were standing on one of the hills that rise in the middle of it, you would think that it looked like a fish. Like a dolphin lying on its side, with its tail pointing toward the sunrise, its nose pointing to the sunset, and its fins making reefs and the rocky ledges along the shore. Whether someone did stand there on the low hills in the days when the earth was new and, because of its shape, called it the Island of the Blue Dolphins,

He spoke again, slowly this time, and though his words sounded the same as before and meant nothing to me, they now seemed sweet. They were the sound of a human voice. There is no sound like this in all the world.

The Island of the Blue Dolphins was my home; I had no other. It would be my home until the white men returned in their ship. But even if they came soon, before next summer, I could not live without a roof or a place to store my food.

Would the weapons break in my hands at the moment when my life was in danger, which is what my father had said? I thought about these things for two days and on the third night when the wild dogs returned to the rock, I made up my mind that no matter what befell me I would make the weapons. In the morning I set about it, though I felt very fearful.

Maybe the two different worlds we lived in weren't so different. We saw the same sunset.

Here were Winnie the Pooh, The Wind in the Willows, A Wrinkle in Time, The Outsiders, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Gone with the Wind, Wuthering Heights. And over here Anne of Green Gables, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Pride and Prejudice, Island of the Blue Dolphins.

Aegean Islands 1940-41 Where white stares, smokes or breaks, Thread white, white of plaster and of foam, Where sea like a wall falls; Ribbed, lionish coast, The stony islands which blow into my mind More often than I imagine my grassy home; To sun one's bones beside the Explosive, crushed-blue, nostril-opening sea (The weaving sea, splintered with sails and foam, Familiar of famous and deserted harbours, Of coins with dolphins on and fallen pillars.) To know the gear and skill of sailing, The drenching race for home and the sail-white houses, Stories of Turks and smoky ikons, Cry of the bagpipe, treading Of the peasant dancers; The dark bread The island wine and the sweet dishes; All these were elements in a happiness More distant now than any date like '40, A. D. or B. C., ever can express.

Or take the heart. It was ruby red and midnight blue, a creature from the sea, a sightless fish that heard everything, vibrated to sad movies and disappointed lovers, and sent its messages in flowing movement, undulating from its core. And the whole uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries were one continent with a long string of islands on either side book-ended by volcanoes that erupted with a glistening egg each month in an unerringly egalitarian manner, one volcano never taking two turns in a row, a perfect Ping-Pong game across the continent. Tess knew the inside of her body, or anyone’s body, but hers in particular. The green rectangle had set up shop, had slipped in under cover of darkness. Had a switch been flipped somewhere else in the thin dolphin glands or the round star-shaped glands? She was sixty-eight. Was this going to be all she had? She

pez espada

An' you can shut your trap, Johnny Cade, 'cause we all know you ain't wanted at home, either. And you can't blame them

We break off into the streets, repairing the cobblestones with our brisk allegro. The townsfolk step aside in awe as my allongés stitch the pastel wood back into cottages and storefronts. Flowers grow from my quick bourrée steps, breathing life back into Luna Island in shades of pink and purple. Rainbows rise from the sea with my grand jeté, summoning the dolphins to leap alongside our dance. Damien catches me in his arms before lifting me into the air as I paint the sky bright blue. We laugh as the beauty of Luna Island blooms once again, running into the forest and turning the ash into lush green trees. Color bursts in the darkness as we chassé through the angels' village and past the glade where our story first began. With my pirouettes, I add extra pink petals to the garden where Damien and I once lay. I break into a series of chaîné turns as we make our way back down to the beach, unleashing the magic Luna bestowed upon me. The townsfolk watch in awe in the midst of the commotion, and I dust them in a veil of starlight that follows my path, healing bruises and stitching wounds until no one bleeds. They gather around me as I finish my dance, thrumming with applause and tossing the freshly spun flowers at my feet.

One, because he was larger, I called Tainor. I named him after a young man I liked who had been killed by the Aleuts. The other was called Lurai, which was a name I wished I had been called instead of Karana.

I came to the mound where my ancestors had sometimes camped in the summer. I thought of them and of the happy times spent in my house on the headland, of my canoe lying unfinished beside the trail. I thought of many things, but stronger was the wish to be where people lived, to hear their voices and their laughter.

Dolphins are animals of good omen. It made me happy to have them swimming around the canoe, and though my hands had begun to bleed from the chafing of the paddle, just watching them made me forget the pain. I was very lonely before they appeared, but now I felt that I had friends with me and did not feel the same.

The name I thought of was Rontu, which means in our language Fox Eyes.

THE WIND BLEW strong

At that moment I walked across the deck and, though many hands tried to hold me back, flung myself into the sea.

All night I sat there with the body of my brother and did not sleep. I vowed that someday I would go back and kill the wild dogs in the cave. I would kill all of them. I thought of how I would do it, but mostly I thought of Ramo, my brother.

... the sound of a human voice. There is no sound like this in all the world

happened once in a long time, it was

The morning was fresh from the rain. The smell of the tide pools was strong. Sweet odors came from the wild grasses in the ravines and from the sand plants on the dunes. I sang as I went down the trail to the beach and along the beach to the sandspit. I felt that the day was an omen of good fortune.

I always dreamed of eating my meals out of coconuts. I may have seen too many Jungle Jim movies as a kid perhaps, but there was also that one desert island book which ruined me forever: Island of the Blue Dolphins, a wonderful

azure blue,