Oyster Quotes

“My mother was an oyster,” he said with a wink. “And I’m the pearl.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm

“In the sea of my emotions, his presence is like a pearl in the oyster. Very hard to locate, yet very precious and still beautiful.”
― Mehek Bassi, Chained: Can you escape fate?

“You're enough to try the patience of an oyster!”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass

“Old-time ranchers planted cheatgrass because it would green up fast in the spring and provide early forage for grazing cattle,” Oyster says, nodding his head at the world outside.

This first patch of cheatgrass was in southern British Columbia, Canada, in 1889. But fire spreads it. Every year, it dries to gunpowder, and now land that used to burn every ten years, it burns every year. And the cheatgrass recovers fast. Cheatgrass loves fire. But the native plants, the sagebrush and desert phlox, they don’t. And every year it burns, there’s more cheatgrass and less anything else. And the deer and antelope that depended on those other plants are gone now. So are the rabbits. So are the hawks and owls that ate the rabbits. The mice starve, so the snakes that ate the mice starve.

Today, cheatgrass dominates the inland deserts from Canada to Nevada, covering an area over twice the size of the state of Nebraska and spreading by thousands of acres per year.

The big irony is, even cattle hate cheatgrass, Oyster says. So the cows, they eat the rare native bunch grasses. What’s left of them...

“When you think about it from a native plant perspective,” Oyster says, “Johnny Appleseed was a fucking biological terrorist.”

Johnny Appleseed, he says, might as well be handing out smallpox.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby

“You can make an oyster surrender its pearl,” Clara says. “All you need is persistence and a sharp enough knife.”
― John Langan, The Fisherman

“It was odd to see her stepping out of that gloomy place, like a pearl coming out of an oyster.”
― Sarah Waters, Fingersmith

“I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster,
but I’ll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me,
he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet
I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous,
yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one
woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that’s
certain; wise, or I’ll none; virtuous, or I’ll never cheapen
her; fair, or I’ll ever look on her; mild, or come not near
me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an
excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what color it
please God. Ha! The Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide
me in the arbor.”
― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

“The world is your oyster, they say, so fill it with pearls of semen.”
― Trebor Healey, A Horse Named Sorrow

“Sweetheart," West murmured kindly, "listen to me. There's no need to worry. You'll either meet someone new, or you'll reconsider someone you didn't appreciate at first. Some men are an acquired taste. Like oysters, or Gorgonzola cheese."
She let out a shuddering sigh. "Cousin West, if I haven't married by the time I'm twenty-five... and you're still a bachelor... would you be my oyster?"
West looked at her blankly.
"Let's agree to marry each other someday," she continued, "if no one else wants us. I would be a good wife. All I've ever dreamed of is having my own little family, and a happy home where everyone feels safe and welcome. You know I never nag or slam doors or sulk in corners. I just need someone to take care of. I want to matter to someone. Before you refuse-"
"Lady Cassandra Ravenel," West interrupted, "that is the most idiotic idea anyone's come up with since Napoleon decided to invade Russia."
Her gaze turned reproachful. "Why?"
"Among a dizzying array of reasons, you're too young for me."
"You're no older than Lord St. Vincent, and he just married my twin."
"I'm older than him on the inside, by decades. My soul is a raisin. Take my word for it, you don't want to be my wife."
"It would be better than being lonely."
"What rubbish. 'Alone' and 'lonely' are entirely different things." West reached out to smooth back a dangling golden curl that had stuck against a drying tear track on her cheek. "Now, go bathe your face in cool water, and-"
"I'll be your oyster," Tom broke in.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Chasing Cassandra

“poetry is not—except in a very limited sense—a form of self-expression. Who on earth supposes that the pearl expresses the oyster?”
― Cecil Day-Lewis, Selected Poetry

“I had rather be an oyster than a man,
the most stupid and senseless of animals.”
― George Berkeley

“The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell.”
― Andrew Carnegie

“Pearls.
Take, like an oyster,
your irritations, your pain.
Use these to create your masterpiece.”
― Jessica de la Davies

“Oyster, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails!”
― Ambrose Bierce

“Describing Ostend oysters: "small and rich, looking like little ears enfolded in shells, and melting between the palate and the tongue like salted sweets.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Bel-Ami

“I live absolutely like an oyster.”
― Gustave Flaubert

“From the oyster to the eagle, from the swine to the tiger, all animals are to be found in men and each of them exists in some man, sometimes several at the time. Animals are nothing but the portrayal of our virtues and vices made manifest to our eyes, the visible reflections of our souls. God displays them to us to give us food for thought.”
― Victor Hugo

“The truth in every myth is the pearl in every oyster.”
― J. Earp

“Charlotte sighed inwardly. She knew her mother was serious when she started referring to shellfish. What did that mean, anyway? What's so great about the world being your oyster? Does that mean it's really hard to open, and when you do, you have something slimy and gross on the inside?”
― Anne Ursu, The Shadow Thieves

“Oysters speaking doesn't give a pearl. (Les huîtres qui parlent - N'ont pas de perle)”
― Charles de Leusse

“Oysters are the usual opening to a winter breakfast. Indeed, they are almost indispensable.”
― Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière

“What could any oyster want to climb a hill for? To climb a hill must necessarily be fatiguing and annoying exercise for an oyster. The most natural conclusion would be that the oysters climbed up there to look at the scenery. Yet when one comes to reflect upon the nature of an oyster, it seems plain that he does not care for scenery. An oyster has no taste for such things; he cares nothing for the beautiful. An oyster is of a retiring disposition, and not lively - not even cheerful above the average, and never enterprising.”
― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, Or, the New Pilgrims' Progress

“He was a very valiant man who first adventured on eating of oysters.”
― James VI & I

“An oyster, that marvel of delicacy, that concentration of sapid excellence, that mouthful before all other mouthfuls, who first had faith to believe it, and courage to execute? the exterior is not persuasive.”
― Henry Ward Beecher

“She’s a tough clam to pry open. I’ve a feeling, though, once we do, we’ll find a pearl.”
“Pearls form in oysters.”
“Oysters, clams...” He waved dismissively. “It’s all seafood. You know what I meant.”
― Maria V. Snyder, Night Study

“⁠Ignorant people are like oysters, because they are idiots, insignificantly small and do not care for anything, they live closed and only open in one or another circumstance. This is the meaning of ignorance”
― JOÃO GABRIEL GONDIM BARCELOS G. MACIEL

“I don't like when they drip lemons upon my depths and make me contort all over. Are the facts of life lemon on the oyster? Does the oyster sleep?”
― Clarice Lispector