Anyone who knows me, knows I love the ocean.

Growing up, I spent my summers dancing between the waves in Long Island Sound. I learned how to swim in the calm salt water. I memorized the tides, and watched the clouds carefully. I marveled at the creatures that lived under the water and loved to catch the fish and crabs with my brother, releasing them at the end of the day. I watched the sunset from the concrete wall with family and friends. I find the ocean calming, soothing, and relaxing, and I treasure my time at the beach like no other. There is nothing that can compare to the way the salt makes my skin sticky or how the sand feels on my feet in the mid-afternoon sun. With the warm weather finally here, I'm thinking of the beach and the ocean more than ever. Here are some of my favorite quotes about the ocean that will make you love the sea as much as I do:

"The ocean stirs the heart, inspires the imagination and brings eternal joy to the soul." - Wyland

"In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth." - Rachel Carson

"Don’t grow up too quickly, lest you forget how much you love the beach." - Michelle Held

"Every time I stand before a beautiful beach, its waves seem to whisper to me: If you choose the simple things and find joy in nature’s simple treasures, life and living need not be so hard." - Psyche Roxas-Mendoza

"The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace." - Kate Chopin

"After a visit to the beach, it’s hard to believe that we live in a material world." - Pam Shaw

"To me, the sea is like a person—like a child that I’ve known a long time. It sounds crazy, I know, but when I swim in the sea I talk to it. I never feel alone when I’m out there." - Gertrude Ederle

"When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused." - Rainer Maria Rilke

"For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), It’s always our self we find in the sea." - E.E. Cummings

"I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." - Isaac Newton

"We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch – we are going back from whence we came…" - John F. Kennedy

"The sea lives in every one of us." - Robert Wyland

"The Sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever." - Jacques Cousteau

"I could never stay long enough on the shore; the tang of the untainted, fresh, and free sea air was like a cool, quieting thought." - Helen Kelle

"The waves of the sea help me get back to me." - Jill Davis

"Because there’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away." - Sarah Kay

"A beach is not only a sweep of sand, but shells of sea creatures, the sea glass, the seaweed, the incongruous objects washed up by the ocean." - Henry Grunwald

"In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans." - Kahlil Gibran

"Even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean." - William Stafford
"The ocean is a place of skin, rich outer membranes hiding thick juicy insides, laden with the soup of being." - Vera Nazarian

Even after 13 years living in Michigan, the sea still manages to keep its grasp on me. Every summer I continue to vacation at my cottage on the ocean, and will continue to do so, forever.