The Shape of Water

When he looks at me, the way he looks at me... He does not know, what I lack... Or - how - I am incomplete. He sees me, for what I - am, as I am. He's happy - to see me. Every time. Every day.

It was never too late to exchange the things you believed defined you for something better.

But I can't be alone, can I? Of course not; I'm not that special. Anomalies like me exist all around the world. So when does an anomaly quit being an anomaly and start being just the way things happen to be? What if you and I are not the last of our kinds, but one of the first? The first of better creatures in a better wold? We can hope, can't we? That we're not of the past, but the future?

She holds him, he holds her, they hold each other, and all is dark, all is light, all is ugliness, all is beauty, all is pain, all is grief, all is never, all is forever.

The most intelligent of creatures,” he offers softly, “often make the fewest sounds.

You deserve better than this. You deserve people who value you. You deserve to go somewhere where you can be proud of who you are.

Eons of loneliness, and then one day your ellipsis peaks toward that of another planet and there is a gasp of nearness. Wouldn’t you try to make the most of it? Wouldn’t you, too, combust and flare and explode if you had to?

Coffee—a barbaric drink. That poor, tortured bean. All that fermenting and husking and roasting and grinding. And what is tea? Tea is dried leaves rehydrated. Just add water, Mrs. Strickland. All living things need water.

The only thing I’m certain of is that uncertainty is the hardest thing in life to endure.

Unable to perceive the shape of you, I find you all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with your love, it humbles my heart, for you are everywhere.

An absence of fear, Elisa realizes, can be mistaken for happiness, but it isn’t the same thing. Not even close.

If you believe that the natural world is good, then you must also accept its brutality.

We're all made of stardust Mr. Strickland. Oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and calcium. If some of us get our way and our Countries fire off their warheads, then we shall return to stardust. All of us. And what color will our stars be then? That is the question. A question you might ask yourself.

Feet are what connect you to the ground, and when you are poor, none of that ground belongs to you.

The most intelligent of creatures often make the fewest sounds.

She realizes that, down here, hate has no purpose. Down here, you embrace your foes until they become your friends. Down here, you seek not to be one being, but all beings, and all at once, God and Chemosh and everything in between. The change in her isn’t only mental. It’s physical, of skin and muscle. Yes, she has arrived. She is full. She is perfect.

The world changes, or doesn't. You fight for the right things and be glad you did.

What would feeling like somebody feel like? To suddenly exist not only in your world, but someone else’s as well?

Men meet a woman who’s mute, they take advantage of her. Never once on a date did a man ever try to communicate, not really. They just grabbed, and took, as if she, voiceless as an animal, was an animal. This is better. The man from the dream, hazy as he is, is better.

By God, Giles thinks, it's true: They are not so different from each other. Giles might still, under the right light, bathed in the right water, be beautiful, too.

For two billion years, the world knew peace. Only with the invention of gender—specifically males, those tail-fanners, horn-lockers, chest-pounders—did Earth begin its slide toward self-extinction. Perhaps this explains Edwin Hubble’s discovery that all known galaxies are moving away from Earth, as if we are a whole planet of arsenic. Hoffstetler comforts himself that, on this morning, all such self-contempt is worth it. Until Mihalkov can authorize the extraction, Occam’s dogs need bones on which to chew.

For brief as water falling will be death, and brief as flower falling, or leaf, brief as the taking, and the giving, breath; thus natural, thus brief, my love, is grief. —CONRAD AIKEN It doesn’t matter if the water is cold or warm if you’re going to have to wade through it anyway. —PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

It's a situation doomed enough to laugh at, but he thinks of what he used to tell his students. Imagine being a planet. Don't laugh, he'd tell them. Try to imagine it. Eons of loneliness, and then one day your ellipsis peaks toward that of another planet and there is a gasp of nearness. Wouldn't you try to make the most of it? Wouldn't you, too, combust and flare and explode if you had to?

Anomalies like me exist all around the world. So when does an anomaly quit being an anomaly and start being just the way things happen to be?

He is hearing the music, yes, but he’s also feeling it, reflecting it, and from that reflection Elisa can hear and feel the music as she never has before.

But what is intelligence? Is intelligence calculations and computations? Or must true intelligence contain a moral component? Each passing minute, I believe more that this is the case.

Hay anomalías como yo en el mundo entero. Y me pregunto: ¿en qué momento una anomalía deja de ser una anomalía y comienza a ser lo que sencillamente es? ¿Y si tú y yo no fuéramos los últimos de nuestro tipo, sino algunos de los primeros? ¿Los primeros seres mejores en un mundo mejor? Podemos albergar esperanza, ¿no es así? La esperanza de que no pertenecemos al pasado, sino al futuro.

Las palabras «The end» se materializan en la pantalla, corre el listado con los créditos, se encienden las luces en la sala y ya no es posible esconder quién eres en realidad.

we welcome all who are willing to follow we welcome the fish we welcome the birds we welcome the insects we welcome the four-legs we welcome the two-legs we welcome you /// come with us