Important Quotations

“Every night I dreamed of a wall of water, towering, black, crept up behind me and hovered over me and then down…” – Sophie (2)

This dream is a reoccurring event throughout the story.  It represents her fear of the ocean and reminds her of what she’s out there to do, conquer her fears.  This also maintains the theme of dreams in the novel.

“Sophie put away your sailing book and takeout your math book!” – Teacher (11)

Sophie cares much more about the sea and would rather study her sailing books, than math, even if the time is inappropriate.

‘I guess you could clean something” – Uncle Stew (17)

This comment angers Sophie because she wants to do more than clean something.  She is faced with sexism because she is the only girl.  This makes it difficult for her to get the jobs she wants to do but she eventually proves herself worthy and overcomes the sex barrier.

“Cody calls them Darlings, Here dolphin darlings! Over here!” – Sophie (56)

This shows how Cody gives names to everything he sees.  He never calls them by their proper names because that’s not what he thinks of them as.  This annoys some of the other characters.

“Got yelled at for breathing” – Cody (60)

Cody gets in more trouble than he regularly would because most of the people on the boat assume the worst of him. He gets treated much more harshly than anyone else because of his continuous mistakes.

“She can take the smallest thing, get right up close to it, and have a million questions about it, then she wants to draw it and touch it and smell it…” – Cody (81)

This gives us insight into what Sophie’s personality is like.  We learn that she’s very analytical.

“Nothing happened to them, they’re back in Kentucky” – Sophie (97)

Sophie pretends that her adopted parents are her real ones.  This shows that she is a very conservative character and doesn’t like to reveal anything about her life, especially about her biological parents.