Quartz has the least favored surface among many oxides for bacterial attachment and for lipid bilayer or micelle interactions. Tetrahedrally coordinated crystalline silica polymorphs are membranolytic toward liposomes, lysosomes, erythrocytes, and macrophages. Amorphous silica, the octahedral silica polymorph, (stishovite), and oxides such as Al2O3, Fe2O3, and TiO2 are less cytotoxic. Existing theories for membrane rupture that invoke interactions between oxide surfaces and cell membrane phospholipids (PLs) do not adequately explain these differences in membranolytic potential of the oxides. The author presents a crystal chemical, thermodynamic model for the initial interaction of oxide surfaces with the quaternary ammonium component of the PL's polar head group. The model includes solvation energy changes and electrostatic forces during adsorption, represented by the dielectric constant of the solid and the charge-to-radius ratio of the adsorbing solute. The nature of oxide-solute interactions compared with oxide-water, solute-water, and water-water interactions determines the membranolytic activity of the oxide, where the solute is TMA(+), the quaternary ammonium moeity. Significant membrane rupture, as on quartz, requires unfavorable adsorption entropy (DeltaS(ads,TmA+) < 0) to maximize disruption of normal membrane structure and requires favorable Gibbs free energy of exchange between TMA+ and the ambient Na+ ions (DeltaG(exc,TMA+/Na+) = DeltaG(ads,TMA+) - DeltaG(ads,Na+) < 0) to maximize the extent of membrane affected. For amorphous silica, DeltaS(ads,TMA+) > 0, so disruption of structure is limited, even though DeltaG(exc,TMA+/Na+) is < 0. Stishovite and other oxides have DeltaS(ads,TMA+) < 0, but now DeltaG(exc,TMA+/Na+) is > 0 at the acidic to circumneutral pHs of cellular and subcellular organelle fluids. The model predicts the correct sequence of membranolytic ability: quartz > amorphous SiO2 > Al2O3 > Fe2O3 > TiO2. The model thus explains the relatively poor adhesion of bacterial cells to quartz and the lack of quartz as a biomineral. It is proposed that one function of extracellular polymeric substances exuded by bacteria is to render mineral surfaces more hydrophilic.