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One of my favorite parts about reading Tress of the Emerald Sea is that it is full of thoughtful and inspiring, quotable one-liners (and even some brief monologues).
I loved how the narrator would take a moment to reflect on events in the book and talk about how they related to human nature as a whole. (Apparently, humans in the Cosmere are pretty much the same as those in our universe.)
I also loved that these reflections were interspersed with humor. This was unavoidable, given the state of our beloved narrator, Hoid.
If you read Tress and were hoping to find that fun or interesting quote you remember reading, hopefully, you will find it here. If not, drop a comment below, and I will try to find it for you.
If there’s a good one that I forgot to include, drop it in the comments section below as well, and I will add it.
More Than 40 Tress of the Emerald Sea Quotes
“Lem was not poor, he simply didn’t have a lot of money.”
“Leaving didn’t feel exciting. It felt heavy. Every child looked forward to the day when they could choose a different path from the one their parents were on. Tress sincerely hoped she hadn’t decided on one that led straight off a cliff.”
“Our minds want dangerous things to be ugly, yet Tress found those rolling waves inviting.”
“Danger doesn’t make a thing less beautiful—in fact, there’s a magnifying influence. Like how a candle seems brightest on the darkest night.
“Deadly beauty is the starkest variety. And you will never find a murderess more intoxicating, more entrancing, than the sea.”
“Nothing motivates quite like a deadline. Particularly one that emphasizes the dead part.”
“Whenever one does discover a moment of joy, beauty enters the world.”
“Clashing is good fashion, trust me.”
“Tress didn’t have a lot of experience with lying, but paradoxically, the ones who are most successful at it are those who don’t do it very often.”
“She’s not dumb; she’s just not accustomed to dealing with someone so genuine.”
“People generally don’t know what they want, though they almost uniformly hate being told what it should be.”
“So Tress wasn’t worried about this lie. She was more concerned by the general density of lies emerging from her. They were all for the greater good, yes, but the aforementioned tiger might also believe that said gnawing was for the greater good. Specifically its good.”
“Even small actions have consequences. And while we can often choose our actions, we rarely get to choose our consequences.”
“Memories have a way of changing on us. Souring or sweetening over time—like a brew we drink, then recreate later by taste, only getting the ingredients mostly right. You can’t taste a memory without tainting it with who you have become.”
“We each make our own lore, our own legends, every day.”
“We always pretend the ideals and culture of the past have aged like wine, but in truth, the ideas of the past tend to age more like biscuits. They simply get stale.”
“Men, what you want to find is a woman who looks at you like Ann looked at that cannon. Because if such a woman exists, you’ll want to move to a completely different kingdom, inform the authorities, and watch the post for packages containing random disembodied fingers.”
“You can basically define someone by the stuff they like.”
“We talk about how important culture is, but what is culture? It ain’t government, or language, or any of that hokum. No, it’s the stuff we like. Plays, stories, marble collections.”
“The guess was as wrong as ending a sentence with a preposition. But it worked anyway. Like ending a sentence with a preposition.”
“If religion couldn’t get it together, then she could be forgiven for being a mess herself.”
“Unfortunately, sympathy is not a valve, to be turned off when it starts to flood the yard. Indeed, the path to a life without empathy is a long and painful one, full of bartered humanity sold at a steep discount.”
“People consistently misjudge common things their entire lives.”
“If bravery is the wind that makes us soar like kites, fear is the string that keeps us from going too far.”
“I love memories. They are our ballads, our personal foundation myths.”
“Nature is supposed to announce herself before murdering you. It’s only sporting.”
“There are, unquestionably, musical geniuses of incomparable talent who died as street sweepers because they never had the chance to pick up an instrument.”
“It’s called the transitive property of ineptitude, and is the explanation for anything you’ve seen me do wrong ever.”
“We need purpose; it’s the spiritual conjunction that glues together human existence and human volition.”
“But for humans at large, knowledge usually equates to empathy, and empathy leads to understanding.”
“Somehow I seem to be best at lying when telling the truth.”
“Heroes are the ones who have thought about what they’re going to do, and who have trained to do it.”
“Heroism is often the seemingly spontaneous result of a lifetime of preparation.”
“Lies have a way of diluting a person. The longer you live them, the more you become a bucket of mixed paint, steadily veering toward generic brown.”
“A boring truth will always have difficulty competing with an exciting lie.”
“A little success is the metaphoric bang on the front of the mental vending machine that jostles loose the stuck ideas.”
“I sat in chains, happily thinking of great conversation starters like politics, religion, and your uncle’s overtly racist views.”
“Human beings are like the shorelines of continents. The closer you look, the more detail you see, basically into infinity.”
“There it is! Irony. The very journey she’d taken to find what she wanted had transformed her into a person who could no longer enjoy that victory.”
“Even big events change us only a little at a time.”
“Everyone needs help. It’s hard to be the person who makes trouble, but the thing is, everyone makes trouble.”
“I’ve discovered that it’s all right to need help. So long as you’ve lived your life as the kind of person who deserves to be rescued.”
FAQs: Tress of the Emerald Sea Quotes
What is the first line of Tress of the Emerald Sea?
“In the middle of the ocean, there was a girl who lived upon a rock.”
What is the last line of Tress of the Emerald Sea?
“The ocean, however, was now as you hopefully imagine it. Assuming you imagine it as emerald green, made up of spores, and bearing endless possibilities.”
What is a popular quote from Tress of the Emerald Sea?
“In short, Tress was a normal teenage girl. She knew this because the other girls often mentioned how they weren’t like ‘everyone else,’ and after a while Tress figured that the group ‘everyone else’ must include only her.”
What is Your Favorite Tress of the Emerald Sea Quote?
Tress of the Emerald Sea is a book about love, bravery, sacrifice, and transformation. It is also full of wonderful, thoughtful, and humorous quotes. I hope these quotes helped to take you back to that adventurous world.
What is your favorite Tress quote? Share in the comments below.
