Fish Off The Hook Quotes & Sayings

His lips met mine and just like the stupid little fish that I was, I sank my teeth right into the hook. — Jettie Woodruff

Thirsty for being, the poet ceaselessly reaches out to reality, seeking with the indefatigable harpoon of the poem a reality that is always better hidden, more re(g)al. The poem's power is as an instrument of possession but at the same time, ineffably, it expresses the desire for possession, like a net that fishes by itself, a hook that is also the desire of the fish. To be a poet is to desire and, at the same time, to obtain, in the exact shape of the desire. — Julio Cortazar

The ego, as a collection of our past experiences, is continually offering miserable lines of thought. It's as if there were a stream with little fish swimming by, and when we hook one of them there is a judgment. The ego is constantly judging everybody and everything. It has its constant little chit chat about things that can happen in the future, things about the past, too, and these are the little fish that swim by. And what we learn to do-this is why it takes work-is to not reach out and grab a fish. — Hugh Prather

Opportunities, many times, are so small that we glimpse them not and yet they are often the seeds of great enterprises. Opportunities are also everywhere and so you must always let your hook be hanging. When you least expect it, a great fish will swim by. — Og Mandino

Bait the hook well. This fish will bite. — William Shakespeare

'Twas merry when You wagered on your angling, when your diver Did hang a salt fish on his hook, which he With fervency drew up. — William Shakespeare

The beautiful thing is that when you catch one fish that you love, even if it's a little fish - a fragment of an idea - that fish will draw in other fish, and they'll hook onto it. Then you're on your way. Soon there are more and more and more fragments, and the whole thing emerges. But it starts with desire. — David Lynch

119. Let your hook be always cast in the pond. when you least expect it, there will be fish. — Ovid

Some time later there was a knock at his door. He was surprised to find it was now evening and the room was quite dark. The knock sounded again. The landlord was at the door. The landlord began to talk, but Strange could not understand him. This was because the man had a pineapple in his mouth. How he had managed to cram the whole thing in there, Strange could not imagine. Green, spiky leaves emerged slowly out of his mouth and then were sucked back in again as he spoke. Strange wondered if perhaps he ought to go and fetch a knife or a hook and try and fish the pineapple out, in case the landlord should choke. But at the same time he did not care much about it. 'After all,' he thought with some irritation, 'it is his own fault. He put it there. — Susanna Clarke

How crazy it would be
if the moon did spin
and the earth stood still
and the sun went dim!

How absolutely ludicrous
if snakes could walk
and kids could fly
and mimes did talk!

How silly it would be
if the nights were tan
and the mornings green
and the sun cyan!

How totally ridiculous
if horses chirped
and spiders sang
and ladies burped!

How shocking it would be
if the dragons ruled
and the knights were daft
but the fish were schooled!

How utterly preposterous
if rain were dry
and snowflakes warm
and real men cried!

I love to just imagine
all the lows as heights,
and the salty, sweet,
and our lefts as rights.

Perhaps it is incredible
and off the hook,
but it all makes sense
in a storybook! — Richelle E. Goodrich

Even as a child back in Indiana, whenever I took a Butterbelly off the hook I used to ask myself, "Does this fish think?" I would even ask others, "Do you suppose this Butterbelly can think?" And all I would get in reply was a look. At the age of eighteen, I left the state. — Will Cuppy

It was necessary to bait the hook to suit the fish. — Dale Carnegie

A fish, which you can't see, deep down in the water, is a kind of symbol of peace on earth, good will to yourself. Fishing gives a man ... some time to collect his thoughts and reaarange them kind of neatly, in an orderly fashion. Once the bait is on the hook and the boat is anchored, there's nothing to interfere with thinking except an occasional bite — Robert Ruark

I attempted to fish in Scotland and I managed to hook a dog. It was a horrible moment but the dog turned out to be fine. — Emily Blunt

Coralie felt something pierce through her, as if she were a fish on a hook, unable to break free. She felt a tie to the stranger, drawn to his every movement. — Alice Hoffman

Desire for an idea is like bait. When you're fishing, you have to have patience. You bait your hook, and then you wait. The desire is the bait that pulls those fish in-those ideas. — David Lynch

One year, on vacation in Hawaii, I was relaxing at a beach, watching whales in the distance, when a fisherman, obviously a local, drove up in his pick-up truck. He got out with a dozen fishing rods. Not one. A dozen. He baited each hook, cast all the lines into the ocean, and set the rods in the sand. Intrigued, I wandered over and asked him for an explanation. "It's simple," he said. "I love fish but I hate fishin'. I like eatin', not catchn'. So I cast out 12 lines. By sunset, some of them will have caught a fish. Never all of 'em. So if I only cast one or two I might go hungry. But 12 is enough so some always catch. Usually there's enough for me and extras to sell to local restaurants. This way, I live the life I want." The simple fellow had unwittingly put his finger on a powerful secret. The flaw in most businesses, that keeps them always in desperate need - which suppresses prices - is: too few lines cast in the ocean. — Dan S. Kennedy

A sly old fish, too cunning for the hook. — George Crabbe

The Roman Catholic Church has the unique power of keeping remote control over human souls which have once been part of her. G.K. Chesterton has compared this to the fisherman's line, which allows the fish the illusion of free play in the water and yet has him by the hook; in his own time the fisherman by a 'twitch upon the thread' draws the fish to land. — Evelyn Waugh

Let your hook be always cast. In the pool where you least expect it, will be fish. — Ovid

All of the women in that time and place, Thea had learned, were stuffed into muslin and starched cotton and forced to sit ramrod-straight and plait their hair or pull it back off their faces with fish oil. There were shoes that laced up with a hundred eyelets, and corsets that required a special hook to open. Women were all in it together back then, as opposed to now, when one woman's experience could differ so greatly from another's that you never knew who you were talking to. — Meg Wolitzer

There's a switch inside every one of us that I guess grew there as a necessary part of survival. How can you drag a fish up out of the river for your supper if you feel the yank of the hook in your own cheek? I get that part. We can't feel for everyone and everything all the time. We'd die of fear or sorrow a hundred times a day. The thing is, it's gotten so we flick the switch off like it's nothing. And, more often than not, we forget to turn it back on. — Alissa York

Personally I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn't think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn't bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or grasshopper in front of the fish and said: "Wouldn't you like to have that?"
Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people? — Dale Carnegie

The cautious wolf fears the pit, the hawk regards with suspicion the snare laid for her, and the fish the hook in its concealment. — Horace

If your concentration is getting bad, take up bass fishing. It will really improve your ability to focus. If you aren't ready when that fish hits, you can't set the hook. — Lee Trevino

Mr. Camphor could see that he (Freddie) was thinking, because he shut his eyes and put on a fiercely determined look. But when presently he opened his eyes, he shook his head. "No good," he said. "Thinking's like fishing. You bait your hook and throw it in the water, but if there aren't any fish around, you naturally can't catch anything. There isn't an idea around anywhere right now. I'll try again later. — Walter R. Brooks

Keep thy hook always baited, for a fish lurks even in the most unlikely swim. — Ovid

Taint no use to sit and whine 'Cause the fish ain't on your line; Bait your hook an' keep on tryin', Keep a-goin'! — Frank Lebby Stanton

And I am revealed for exactly what I am - a particularly stupid fish, moving from hook to hook, never learning my lesson — Victoria Aveyard

We [can] catch fish and just throw them back ... it [doesn't] seem to hurt the fish much past a cut lip. But then ... one [may] swallow the hook ... [it'd be] a goner, whether we tried to pull it out or just cut the line. Because once you've swallowed the hook, there's no losing it. Me, I've swallowed it big time. — Graham McNamee

When I was a child, my father used to take me for walks, often along a river or by the sea. We would pass people fishing, perhaps reeling in their lines with struggling fish hooked at the end of them. Once I saw a man take a small fish out of a bucket and impale it, still wriggling, on an empty hook to use as bait. — Peter Singer

Men go shopping just as men go out fishing or hunting, to see how large a fish may be caught with the smallest hook. — Henry Ward Beecher

Fishing, Danny boy, is purely a state of mind. Some men, when they are fishing, are after fish. Me, I'm after things you could never set a barbed hook in. — William Kent Krueger

When I was a young girl salmon fishing with my father in the Straits of Juan de Fuca in Washington State I used to lean out over the water and try to look past my own face, past the reflection of the boat, past the sun and darkness, down to where the fish were surely swimming. I made up charm songs and word-hopes to tempt the fish, to cause them to mean biting my hook. I believed they would do it if I asked them well and patiently and with the right hope. I am writing my poems like this. I have used the fabric and the people of my life as the bait. — Tess Gallagher

I call intuition cosmic fishing. You feel a nibble, then you've got to hook the fish. — R. Buckminster Fuller

The children are in love but do not know with what. They talk in gibberish, muse themselves into an indefinable pallor, and when they are completely at a loss they invent a language that maddens them. My fish. My hook. My fox. My snare. My fire. You my water. You my current. My earth. You my if. And you my but. Either. Or. My everything ... my everything ... They push one another, go for each other with their fists and scuffle over a counter-word that doesn't exist. — Ingeborg Bachmann

Gifts are like fish-hooks; for who is not aware that the greedy char is deceived by the fly which he swallows? — Martial

Goes to show you can't judge a fish by the hook in it's mouth. — Erin R. Bedford