Mermaid Quotes

In London, the home of the quick deal is that outer ring of the seven circles of hell, Tottenham Court Road, where, as a rule, finding something with an advertised price is as likely as spotting a mermaid under Vauxhall Bridge. ~ David Hewson

A beautiful, swirled brown and white shell like the one Ursula used to wear, but larger. A whelk, not a nautilus. Vareet picked it up in wonder, turning it over in her hands, admiring its gleam in the moonlight. On a whim she put it to her ear.
Her eyes widened.
In the depths of the shell, she could hear what must have been the echo of distant waves... and also the song of a mermaid. ~ Liz Braswell

I inhaled a lungful and found my insides moon-walking. She smelt oceanic, Like a mermaid. ~ Pawan Jangid

I am a creature of the Fey
Prepare to give your soul away
My spell is passion and it is art
My song can bind a human heart
And if you chance to know my face
My hold shall be your last embrace.

I shall be thy lover...

I am unlike a mortal lass
From dreams of longing I have passed
I came upon your lonely cries
Revealed beauty to your eyes
So shun the world that you have known
And spend your nights within my own.

I shall be thy lover...

You shall be known by other men
For your great works of voice and pen
Yet inspiration has a cost
For with me know your soul is lost
I'll take your passion and your skill
I'll take your young life quicker still.

I shall be thy lover...

Through the kisses that I give
I draw from you that I will live
And though you think this weakness grand
The touch of death your lover's hand
Your will to live has come too late
Come to my arms and love this fate

I shall be thy lover...

I am a creature of the Fey
Prepare to give your soul away
My spell is passion and it is art
My song can bind a human heart
And if you chance to know my face
My hold shall be your last embrace. ~ Heather Alexander

The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal. ~ Mark Twain

Mermaid queens didn't often have a reason to move quickly. There were no wars to direct, no assassination attempts to evade, no crowds of clamoring admirers to avoid among the merfolk. In fact, slowness and calm were expected of royalty.
So Ariel found herself thoroughly enjoying the exercise as she beat her tail against the water- even as it winded her a little. She missed dashing through shipwrecks with Flounder, fleeing sharks, trying to scoot back home before curfew. She loved the feel of her powerful muscles, the way the current cut around her when she twisted her shoulders to go faster.
She hadn't been this far up in years and gulped as the pressure of the deep faded. She clicked her ears, readying them for the change of environment. Colors faded and transformed around her from the dark, heady slate of the ocean bottom to the soothing azure of the middle depths and finally lightening to the electric, magical periwinkle that heralded the burst into daylight.
She hadn't planned to break through the surface triumphantly. She wouldn't give it that power. Her plan was to take it slow and rise like a whale. Casually, unperturbed, like Ooh, here I am.
But somehow her tail kicked in twice as hard the last few feet, and she exploded into the warm sunlit air like she had been drowning.
She gulped again and tasted the breeze- dry in her mouth; salt and pine and far-distant fires and a thousand alien scents. ~ Liz Braswell

I am naked, wrapped up in a dragon that should be a prince, I don't know how much of my crew is dead, and those mermaids could return at any time. Would somebody please say something that makes sense? ~ Megan Derr

Tell me the story, Pew ... It was a woman. You always say that. There's always a woman somewhere, child; a princess, a witch, a stepmother, a mermaid, a fairy godmother, or one as wicked as she is beautiful, or as beautiful as she is good. Is that the complete list? Then there is the woman you love. Who's she? That's another story. ~ Jeanette Winterson

With "poets dead and gone" as Keats says in "Mermaid Tavern" they are alive and talking to us and us to them. ~ Gregory Orr

The first time I saw a mermaid in my dream, and she looked so real...THAT.'s fishy!! ~ Ana Claudia Antunes

Name a mer-hero, and we have trained him or her!" "Oh, sure," Leo said. "Like ... um, the Little Mermaid?" Aphros frowned. "Who? No! Like Triton, Glaucus, Weissmuller, and Bill! ~ Rick Riordan

I do love you. I love you enough to accept who you are. Why can't I received the same feeling in return?
-Ariel ~ Khalia Hades

Since the nineteen-fifties, rural Florida has marketed itself to Northerners and Midwesterners as an unexplored paradise of citrus and mermaids. ~ Anne Hull

She believes that I love her!" cried the King. "What a fatal mistake! What is to be done to undeceive her?" "You know best," answered the Mermaid, smiling kindly at him. "When people are as much in love with one another as you two are, they don't need advice from anyone else. ~ Andrew Lang

Ms. Wrack's mother, Mrs. Wrack, had been a mermaid: a proper one who lived on a rock and combed her hair and sang. But sailors had never been lured to their doom by her, partly because she looked like the back of a bus and partly because modern ships are so high out of the water that they never even saw her ~ Eva Ibbotson

I am a Magyr. I could crush your skull with my hands and drink this rat town under the table afterwards. And if I wanted to kill myself a passel of sailors, I'd bloody well do it with cannon, saber, and a fist in the teeth, not by batting my damn eyelashes. You'd be wise to remember it, Maggie, my love, and if we see a mermaid on our jaunt across the high seas, the best thing for all of us would be to let Sheapshank here put an arrow through her giggling head. ~ Catherynne M Valente

I think every little girl's dream is to be a mermaid or to see a mermaid. [When I was younger] I would go to the beach and cover myself in the sand. People from different cultures and centuries have the same idea of what mermaids are ... so that's maybe a cool thing to think about. ~ Emma Roberts

Be still for you may hear the hauntingly familiar song of a mermaid. ~ Heather McLaren

If Eric had just listened to his heart and not someone else's singing, none of this would have happened.
He had fallen in love with the voiceless red-haired girl. He was just too stupid and obstinate to recognize it. He loved everything about her. Her smile, the way she moved, the way she took delight in everything around her. She was impulsive, unmannered, willing to get dirty, a little strange, and extremely hands-on. And beautiful. So different from all the princesses and ladies his parents had introduced him to. ~ Liz Braswell

Clark Gable was the first to have called me a mermaid. ~ Esther Williams

I'm swimming," Caspian announced. "Sort of. Do you think that will interfere with my mermaid search? If I fall into the ocean and I'm not drowning, do you think she'll bother to save me?"
"I think your mermaid probably has a life," Wills said ... "You can't count on her to be waiting around for you every day. So drowning on purpose makes you an idiot. ~ Sarah Cross

There are seven mermaid princesses and seven pearls. The reason I sing is to convey my love. The reason the pearl sparkels is to brighten the sea. And so, I can never forget...the sound of the waves or the warmth of the sea. ~ Pink Hanamori

words
like mysterious mermaids
come and live permanently
in the soft sweeps
and scars of my skin. ~ Sanober Khan

And unless I'm remembering it wrong, mermaids don't sing and sirens don't swim."
"Ariel sang in 'The Little Mermaid'," Corey said.
Sam came over to join us. "Do I even want to know why you remember her name? ~ Kelley Armstrong

Thus the little mermaid learned her world's greatest paradox: that their currency was beauty, and their coin was body parts. ~ Esther Dalseno

Forgetting was not the same as healing. ~ Rivers Solomon

Have you ever thought about rhythm? The way it changes from inside a song? The way it picks up pace or drops and takes you somewhere new?

Rhythm is the key, but sometimes rhythm shakes and shimmies, shifts and emerges all mermaid-new. ~ Fox Benwell

She is a mermaid, but approach her with caution- her mind swims at a depth that most would drown it. ~ Unknown

Sharp knives seemed to cut her delicate feet, yet she hardly felt them, so deep was the pain in her heart. She could not forget that this was the last night she would ever see the one for whom she had left her home and family, had given up her beautiful voice, and had day by day endured unending torment, of which he knew nothing at all. An eternal night awaited her. ~ Hans Christian Andersen

I know a sad little mermaid
Dwelling in the ocean
Softly, gently blowing
Her heart into a wooden flute
A sad little mermaid
Who dies with a kiss at dawn. ~ Forugh Farrokhzad

They were quiet a moment longer, both staring at the mermaid and her weird water-spouting nipples. Neither moved.

Mollie knew why she didn't want the moment to end. But why was he still here? ~ Lauren Layne

The sea beckoned to me, and all reality was lost - swept away in the entrancing song of the tide. ~ Meredith T. Taylor

Have you found your life distasteful?
My life did and does smack sweet.
Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?
Mine I save and hold complete.
Do your joys with age diminish?
When mine fail me, I'll complain.
Must in death your daylight finish?
My sun sets to rise again. ~ Robert Browning

Running her fingers on the scales, she sighs. "I wonder what its like to be a human?"
"Why won't you just go and find out?" the question startled her. She whirled around to come face to face with her evil aunt; Ursula. ~ Khalia Hades

She sang.
Wordless hymns of the sea: immediate, extemporized passages about waves and sunlight and tides and the constant, beautiful pressure of water on everything. The glory of seaweed slowly swaying, the delicious feeling that foretold a storm in the Dry World and turbulence below.
The music came out of her without pause, driven by years of observing, seeing, listening, enjoying, experiencing the world and unable to express it. The wonder and sadness of being alive. The joy of being a mermaid; the pain of being the only one like herself- the only mermaid who had been mortal, temporarily, and then lost everything. ~ Liz Braswell

I'm a demon...I'll curse a mermaid. I'll curse a cocker spaniel. I don't care about anything. ~ Cassandra Clare

She's not quite a mermaid - see? - and she's not quite human. She sits on land, where she has chosen to stay . . . and she stares eternally out to sea, homesick and forever lonely for what she left behind. She's everybody who ever made a difficult choice. [...] She doesn't regret her choice, but she must pay for it; every choice must be paid for. The cost to her is not only endless homesickness. She can never be quite human; when she uses her dearly bought feet, every step is on sharp knives. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him up for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown. ~ W.B.Yeats

I don't wanna go. I want to defile the prestigious Plaza Hotel by having you ride me like a slutty mermaid in the bathtub. ~ Emma Chase

Writing fiction is an inherently political activity because people-even imaginary ones-do not live in vacuums ... From Twilight to Romeo and Juliet to The Little Mermaid, no work of the imagination is truly apolitical, because the world and our hopes for it are always part of our stories. ~ John Green

O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
to drown me in thy sister's flood of tears. ~ William Shakespeare

Angel of the Forsaken Hope
Wielder of the Sword of Wind and Obsidian
Slice the Algorithms from our Foe.

Mermaid Beneath the Seven Dancing Moons,
Cantress of the Siren Song,
Drown our Enemies in the Data-stream.

Nymph of the Logic Tree,
Child of the First Word,
Give our Antagonist to Grief. ~ Roger Zelazny

Souls of poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host's Canary wine?"
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison? O generous food!
Drest though bold Robin Hood
Would, wit his maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can
"I have heard that on a day
Mine host's sign-board flew away,
Nobody knew whither, till
An astrologer's old quill
To a sheepskin gave the story,
Said he saw you in your glory,
Underneath a new old sign
Sipping beverage divine,
And pledging with contented smack
The Mermaid in the Zodiac. ~ John Keats

Phin, history is filled with false realities. If we stopped at what we know to be true, we'll never discover that it's actually false. The Earth would still be flat. -Ethan Cottington, Memoir of a Mermaid Book #1 ~ Adrianna Stepiano

The ocean has a rhythm, but it has no heart. ~ Christina Henry

She wore ear-rings, and a silver-green mermaid's dress. Lolloping on the waves and braiding her tresses she seemed, having that gift still; to be; to exist; to sum it all up in the moment as she passed; turned, caught her scarf in some other woman's dress, unhitched it, laughed, all with the most perfect ease and air of a creature floating in its element. But age had brushed her; even as a mermaid might behold in her glass the setting sun on some very clear evening over the waves. ~ Virginia Woolf

Darwin may have been quite correct in his theory that man descended from the apes of the forest, but surely woman rose from the frothy sea, as resplendent as Aphrodite on her scalloped chariot. ~ Margot Datz

You asked me who I thought I was before. I said maybe I was a fish because I love water and you said, you thought a mermaid, maybe.
If you were a mermaid, you said, if you were a mermaid, I was the sea. ~ Francesca Lia Block

My mother wanted to name me Jackie or Jacqueline but she got to name my sister and my brother, so my dad and my brother insisted on naming me. And they were big fans of 'The Little Mermaid.' ~ Ariel Winter

She smells the way a mermaid ought to smell. She smells of the sea. ~ George R R Martin

Hypothesis The science Mermaids are related to aliens from outer space who settled areas of Earth deep under the ocean and eventually mated with fish. This hypothesis is "out there." No evidence exists to support it. Creatures that closely resembled mermaids once existed but are now extinct or rare. For instance, a now-extinct species of sea cows might have been mistaken for mermaids. If true, this hypothesis would only prove the existence of a different type of sea cow, not mermaids. Plus, it would not explain recent mermaid sightings. Mermaids once existed but are now extinct. No "mermaid" fossils have yet been found. Mermaid ~ Lori Hile

I'm sure I'd remember if we'd met. It doesn't happen every day to witness perfection on Earth. ~ Monica La Porta

Different kinds of tired:

1. All day at the beach sleepy. Warm skin. Wet hair. Salt and sand and green-apple scented shampoo. Bed sheet tides pulling up and down stomach flips into mermaid dreams.

2. Milky tired. Early nights. Wondering if you are getting sick. Medicine light bones. Eyelids melting closed. Dizzy, dizzy, spinning into sleep.

3. Drowsy car rides. Soft radio buzz. Pillow on the window. Pulling on your seatbelt. Waking up and not knowing where you are. ~ Unknown

Galloway pursed his lips and then gave a sly smirk. "I'll admit I didn't foresee this. You have become a prominent foe. I apologize for ridiculing you."
"I accept your apology."
"Good. Now it's time to die."
"Are you ready old man?"
Galloway sputtered out a laugh.
"Oh yes."
"Then let's end this. ~ T.C. Harrison

I'm so sick of mermaid dresses, trains, borrowed bling-bling, and a pose. ~ Andre Leon Talley

Human?' The girl cocked her head the other way. I caught a glimpse of pink gills under her chin. 'My sisters told me stories of humans. They said they sometimes sing to them to lure them underwater.' She grinned, showing off her sharp needle-teeth. 'I've been practicing. Want to hear? ~ Julie Kagawa

When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
(Ophelia) ~ William Shakespeare

Aye, tough mermaids are, the lot of them. ~ Blackbeard

The day I bought my cane, I realized
I was through with the burden of feet. Instead,
I am going to become a mermaid.
I have always liked the ocean, the promise
of depth. I am tired of this dry world,
all of this dust and sickness, these barren fields.
I want to dive without drowning. I want to kiss sharks.
I want men to carve me into the bows of their ships
like a prayer, before I lure them into the depths
with my fishnet mouth. I want the beauty,
the gorgeous mutation, the fairytale of half body.
All the wisdom of a woman, without the failures of sex.
I am plunging. I am not coming up for air.
I do not want all this human,
my legs move like they resent being legs,
my body is wrecked by all this gravity.
I cannot face another morning waking up
with no hope of a fairytale. Here on land,
I am always drowning. Here on land,
I cannot move. ~ Clementine Von Radics

The mermaid is an archetypal image that represents a woman who is at ease in the great waters of life, the waters of emotion and sexuality. She shows us how to embrace our instinctive sexuality and sensuality so that we can affirm the essence of our feminine nature, the wisdom of our bodies, and the playfulness of our spirits. She symbolizes our connection with our deepest instinctive feelings, our wild and untamed animal nature that exists below the surface of outward personalities. She is able to respond to her mysterious sexual impulses without abandoning her more human, conscious side. What happened to the girls who dreamed of being mermaids? ~ Anita Johnston

Mermaids have no tears, and so they suffer all the more. ~ Hans Christian Andersen

You must know, my own love, that in each element there exists a race of beings, whose form scarcely differs from yours, but who very seldom appear to mortal sight … you now see before you, my love, an undine. ~ Friedrich De La Motte Fouqué

To slip beneath the surface and soar along the silent bottom of the sea agile and shining in water honeycombed with light. ~ Ellen Meloy

The Lost Girls

Nomad girls are Lost Ones too,
With leaves at foot and crown;
They too seek shelter in the tress,
Drink Red and Gold and Brown.

Their circlets made of steam and rain,
Their lashes powdered ash,
They're firelight, they're fox's kill,
They're blood and sweat and scratch.

Lost Boys fly forever, and crow the rising sun.
They play all day in Neverland, their laughter mermaid-spun.
But Lost Girls live underground:
They steal from hole to hole.
They drink the shadows, wear the night,
And paint their cheeks with coal.

And when the wind turns colder,
They split a doe and climb inside.
Still-warm sinew wraps their hands,
Dead muscle soaks the light.

You'll never tell what's girl, what's beast,
Once bloody fur's been trussed-
So think your happy thoughts, Lost Boy,
Wish on your Fairy Dust. ~ Lauren Bird Horowitz

The principles underlying propaganda are extremely simple. Find some common desire, some widespread unconscious fear or anxiety; think out some way to relate this wish or fear to the product you have to sell; then build a bridge of verbal or pictorial symbols over which your customer can pass from fact to compensatory dream, and from the dream to the illusion that your product, when purchased, will make the dream come true. They are selling hope.

We no longer buy oranges, we buy vitality. We do not just buy an auto, we buy prestige. And so with all the rest. In toothpaste, for example, we buy not a mere cleanser and antiseptic, but release from the fear of being sexually repulsive. In vodka and whisky we are not buying a protoplasmic poison which in small doses, may depress the nervous system in a psychologically valuable way; we are buying friendliness and good fellowship, the warmth of Dingley Dell and the brilliance of the Mermaid Tavern. With our laxatives we buy the health of a Greek god. With the monthly best seller we acquire culture, the envy of our less literate neighbors and the respect of the sophisticated. In every case the motivation analyst has found some deep-seated wish or fear, whose energy can be used to move the customer to part with cash and so, indirectly, to turn the wheels of industry. ~ Aldous Huxley

She tried to speak; her mouth opened, once, twice, silent, a mermaid washed ashore. ~ Gillian Flynn

I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living. ~ Anais Nin

Go away," he said, hardly lifting his mouth from hers. "Go home!"
"It's too late," she whispered. "Can't you see, it's too late..."
She held on to his neck like a mermaid pulling a man to his doom. ~ Lara Blunte

Sea-foam
And coral! Oh, I'll
Climb the great pasture rocks
And dream me mermaid in the sun's
Gold flood. ~ Adelaide Crapsey

Basically, everyone thinks
knows
how sweet I am.
Emma, you threw my sister through hurricane-proof glass. ~ Anna Banks

The first rule of cannibal mermaid fight club is don't talk about cannibal mermaid fight club. ~ Kali Wallace

I could see the combinations and permutations flutter through their minds. This was Boulder. It could easily be two moms. Two dads. A dad, a mom, and an orangutan. Three Amish hipsters and a transgendered Aboriginal mermaid. ~ Bill Konigsberg

Pleased to meet you," Tellin says, shaking me out of my reverie. "Lily told me much about you last weekend."
"Funny." Quince throws me a questioning glance. "She didn't mention you at all. ~ Tera Lynn Childs

I don't think we should really be judging on Chris Brown like that until we know what Rihanna did. We all got reasons for what we do. Look at me. I'm one of the top 10 performers of all-time. I had to beat this one mermaid ass in a seafood restaurant over some shrimps. No lie. You just never know. ~ Coolio

I thought a mermaid lived in my shower drain, and I used to call her Sarah and talk to her. ~ Tarryn Fisher

The main courtyard was filled with warriors - mermen with fish tails from the waist down and human bodies from the waist up, except their skin was blue, which I'd never known before.Some were tending the wounded. Some were sharpening spears and swords. One passed us, swimming in a hurry. His eyes were bright green, like that stuff they put in glo-sticks, and his teeth were shark teeth. They don't show you stuff like that in The Little Mermaid. ~ Rick Riordan

Kiss her you dolt!"
And in a perfect Little Mermaid moment, the people began to chant, "Kiss her! Kiss her!"
Jamie spun me around, took my face in both his hands, and kissed me until the entire world faded away ~ Carey Corp

Most people think of Ariel when they think of mermaids. What they don't know is that she's surrounded by really hot-tempered mermaids. ~ Edward Kitsis

Then your tail will divide and shrink until it becomes what the people on earth call a pair of shapely legs. But it will hurt; it will feel as if a sharp sword slashed through you. Everyone who sees you will say that you are the most graceful human being they have ever laid eyes on, for you will keep your gliding movement and no dancer will be able to tread as lightly as you. But every step you take will feel as if you were treading upon knife blades so sharp that blood must flow. I am willing to help you, but are you willing to suffer all this?"
"Yes," the little mermaid said in a trembling voice, as she thought of the Prince and of gaining a human soul. ~ Hans Christian Andersen

This angered me. "Nothing has changed!?!?" I screamed at him. I was furious with him. He had duped me. "Your a mermaid! Your a freak!"
Calling him a freak hurt his feelings. "I am the same boy you fell in love with. I can't help who I was born as, but that doesn't affect the boy in which I want to be."
"And what is that?" I asked, really emotional right now.
"A boy who wants to be given the chance to love you."
With these tender words, I instantly ran into his arms. "Oh Trysten, I don't care who you are, or what you can become, but I love you for loving me. ~ Keira D. Skye

Blow on, ye death fraught whirlwinds! blow,
Around the rocks, and rifted caves;
Ye demons of the gulf below!
I hear you, in the troubled waves.
High on this cliff, which darkness shrouds
In night's impenetrable clouds,
My solitary watch I keep,
And listen, while the turbid deep
Groans to the raging tempests, as they roll
Their desolating force, to thunder at the pole.

Eternal world of waters, hail!
Within thy caves my Lover lies;
And day and night alike shall fail
Ere slumber lock my streaming eyes.
Along this wild untrodden coast,
Heap'd by the gelid' hand of frost;
Thro' this unbounded waste of seas,
Where never sigh'd the vernal breeze;
Mine was the choice, in this terrific form,
To brave the icy surge, to shiver in the storm.

Yes! I am chang'd - My heart, my soul,
Retain no more their former glow.
Hence, ere the black'ning tempests roll,
I watch the bark, in murmurs low,
(While darker low'rs the thick'ning' gloom)
To lure the sailor to his doom;
Soft from some pile of frozen snow
I pour the syren-song of woe;
Like the sad mariner's expiring cry,
As, faint and worn with toil, he lays him down to die.

Then, while the dark and angry deep
Hangs his huge billows high in air ;
And the wild wind with awful sweep,
Howls in each fitful swell - beware!
Firm on the rent and crashing mast,
I ~ Anne Bannerman

Even if they are fictional, I always thought that mermaids were beautiful creatures. Of course, they don't compare to you, but still ... ~ Daniele Lanzarotta

A late arrival had the impression of lots of loud people unnecessarily grouped within a smoke-blue space between two mirrors gorged with reflections. Because, I suppose, Cynthia wished to be the youngest in the room, the women she used to invite, married or single, were, at the best, in their precarious forties; some of them would bring from their homes, in dark taxis, intact vestiges of good looks, which, however, they lost as the party progressed. It has always amazed me - the capacity sociable weekend revelers have of finding almost at once, by a purely empiric but very precise method, a common denominator of drunkenness, to which everybody loyally sticks before descending, all together, to the next level. The rich friendliness of the matrons was marked by tomboyish overtones, while the fixed inward look of amiably tight men was like a sacrilegious parody of pregnancy. Although some of the guests were connected in one way or another with the arts, there was no inspired talk, no wreathed, elbow-propped heads, and of course no flute girls. From some vantage point where she had been sitting in a stranded mermaid pose on the pale carpet with one or two younger fellows, Cynthia, her face varnished with a film of beaming sweat, would creep up on her knees, a proffered plate of nuts in one hand, and crisply tap with the other the athletic leg of Cochran or Corcoran, an art dealer, ensconced, on a pearl-grey sofa, between two flushed, happily disintegrating ladies.

At a ~ Vladimir Nabokov

My skin feels too tight, like I might rupture. My mother must have read the end, the cards Enola keeps reading, the same thing Verona Bonn read, all the way back to Ryzhkova. They passed the cards to each other creating history, fingers touching paper, imbuing it with hope and fears, fear like a curse. Of course they wouldn't clear their cards, they were talking to their mothers, and isn't that part of why I've stayed here? The book noted a falling out between Ryzhkova and her apprentice, a falling out over the mermaid. Enola said that cards build history - what a perfect way to wound someone. The cards were hers, Ryzhkova's, then Amos and Evangeline's on down the line, each leaving themselves in the ink, each pulling from the deck, pulling in fears that work like poison. The wind blows a sheet of paper across a split board. The only paper of consequence was never in my possession - it was in Enola's. ~ Erika Swyler

All of which Flora said with so much headlong vehemence as if she really believed it. There is not much doubt that when she worked herself into full mermaid condition, she did actually believe whatever she said in it. ~ Charles Dickens

I WAS a mermaid in my past-life! I definitely was. I don't know why I'm obsessed with them that much, which is why I think that somehow in my past-life I must have just lived underwater or something. Maybe I was a fish or a dolphin, but I do believe in mermaids. ~ Ella Henderson

The music started. I felt the blood run out of my face, leaving me cold.
"Oh, oak and ash," I said. "This isn't happening."
I wasn't the only to have that thought. Quentin pushed through the crowd to stand on my other side....
"That's the Luidaeg," he said, sounding dazed.
"Uh huh," I agreed.
"That's the Luidaeg, singing 'Poor Unfortunate Souls.' In a karaoke bar. In front of other people.
"Uh huh," I agreed again. Doing anything else seemed impossible. Well, except for maybe drinking my beer. Drinking my beer, I could do. I drank some of my beer.
The Luidaeg did not disappear. The Luidaeg remained on the stage, belting out the sea witch's song from Disney's 'The Little Mermaid.' Given that the Luidaeg IS the sea witch according to every legend I've ever heard, the overall effect was more than a little jarring.
"We're gonna need more beer," said Danny. ~ Seanan McGuire

I just love mermaids. I was a mermaid in my past life. I just feel it when I go in the sea. I just feel a connection there between me, and the water, and the fish - they speak to me - and the shells - they ring out to me. ~ Ella Henderson

Everybody always wants to be a mermaid ~ Beth Mayall

Managing a league club is like making love to a mermaid ... you should always be aiming for a top half finish ~ Ian Holloway

She snuggled close, nuzzling her hair beneath his chin. "Never leave me," she whispered back.
The siren chuckled sadly, the sound vibrating up through his chest and pleasantly against her ear. "But I must return to the sea every now and then or I will die." He sighed. "Some part of me believes it would be a good death. ~ Ash Gray

Lots of people do not feel and do not care, deeply. They're the sea creatures who were born to swim in the shallows. And I think that they look at those of us who come from the parts of the ocean that's pitch black and deeper than the core of the planet and they feel fascinated. They're fascinated in the way we are fascinated with eagles or with vampires. They think we're unabashedly deep and beautiful and they feel like they want to try being that way, too. It's like a fascination for a mystical creature. But I have watched these kinds of people burn out before they ever reach that depth (not even close). They burn out because they just get so exhausted! You only have the set of lungs designed for the depths of the ocean, if you are the type of creature who was born in those depths. It's not a regimen, it's not a list of rules, it's not a succession of steps to get there. It's about anatomy. There are creatures for the shallows and creatures for the deep. It is nature's designer plan. And when these people burn out, they will have these outbursts wherein they lash out at you, as if they are exasperated at why you're a mermaid in the black of the seas, and if they could, they'd drag you into a glass tank and chain you up because they don't want that kind of beauty around them, outshining them. Feeling and living in the depths of life (caring so much it hurts, feeling so much it becomes painful) is a mystical, beautiful thing but it cannot be copied and it shouldn't be copied. ~ C. JoyBell C.

Maybe when I die and I'm thrown overboard, I'll turn into a mermaid. ~ Aoife O'Donovan

Hopefully, anyone who saw a woman riding a screaming mermaid in a wheelchair down Leavenworth at a quarter to five in the morning would just think they'd had too much to drink. ~ Seanan McGuire

The object Rusty found on Black Ridge looked so much like his Apple TV addon that he at first thought it actually was one ... only modified, of course, so it could hold an entire town prisoner as well as broadcast The Little Mermaid to your television via Wi-Fi and in HD. ~ Stephen King

You're a miracle," he breathed.
"You're a miracle," the mermaid echoed, before it leaned up and carefully, almost delicately, ripped away his throat. ~ Mira Grant

We gave you an atomic bomb, what do you want, mermaids ? ~ Isidor Isaac Rabi

A mermaid is not frightened by her own duality. She is a walking contradiction of piety and lust, sobriety and ecstasy, brilliance and stubborness, the sacred and the scandalous.

...so dance with your own inner paradox. ~ Margot Datz

Clay, what do you think about this one?" I asked, trying to redirect his attention. He was looking at Hunter like he hoped he would spontaneously combust.

He glanced at the screen. "King Triton and a mermaid?"
"Yeah. It's kind of cool."

"Clay doesn't have the abs to pull that off," Hunter spoke, peering over. "You on the other hand would look fabulous as a mermaid."

I could feel Clay's temperature starting to boil. "I suppose you think you're the perfect one to pull off this costume?" he accused.

Hunter snorted. "I wouldn't be caught dead dressing up like that, but yeah, my abs would work. ~ Lacey Weatherford

Never ask a mermaid if you can borrow her tail. ~ Mira Grant