Little Fish Quotes & Sayings

Plants began the process of land colonization about 450 million years ago, accompanied of necessity by tiny mites and other organisms which they needed to break down and recycle dead organic matter on their behalf. Larger animals took a little longer to emerge, but by about 400 million years ago they were venturing out of the water, too. Popular illustrations have encouraged us to envision the first venturesome land dwellers as a kind of ambitious fish - something like the modern mudskipper, which can hop from puddle to puddle during droughts - or even as a fully formed amphibian. In fact, the first visible mobile residents on dry land were probably much more like modern woodlice, sometimes also known as pillbugs or sow bugs. These are the little bugs (crustaceans, in fact) that are commonly thrown into confusion when you upturn a rock or log. — Bill Bryson

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

There is a wonderful simple human reality to Christ's hunger. The man is famished. He's missed meals for three days, He has a lot on his mind, He's on His way back to heaven, but before He goes He is itching for a nice piece of broiled fish and a little bread on the side with the men and women He loves. Do we not like Him the more for His prandial persistance? And think for a moment about the holiness of our own food, and the ways that cooking and sharing a meal can be forms of love and prayer. And realize again that the Eucharist at the heart of stubborn Catholicism is the breakfast that Christ prepares for Catholics, every morning, as we return from fishing in vast dreamy seas? — Brian Doyle

You think I'm pretty?" I ask.
"We need to stop talking," he says a little gruffly. "We're scaring the fish off."
"Okay, okay." I bite my lip, then smile. — Cynthia Hand

My teen-beat afternoon clarified everything for me. I had to get back to where I was who I was, a son of New Jersey, gunslinger, bar band king, small-town local hero, big fish in a little pond and breadwinner. Right — Bruce Springsteen

We look high and low for God, but somehow He's not there. So we blame Him and tell ourselves that He must have forgotten us. Or else we decide that He left us long ago, if He was ever around."
"How strange," the little fish said, "to miss what is everywhere."
"Very strange," the old whale agreed. "Doesn't it remind you of fish who say they're thirsty? — Michael Jackson

I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect ... always when I have done I feel it would have been better if I had not fished. — Henry David Thoreau

A Ripple Song

Once a ripple came to land
In the sunset burning-
Lapped against a maiden's hand,
By the ford returning.

Dainty foot and gentle breast-
Here, across, be glad and rest.
"Maiden, wait," the ripple saith
"Wait awhile, for I am Death!"

'Where my lover calls I go-
Shame it were to treat him coldly-
'Twas a fish that circled so,
Turning over boldly.'

Dainty foot and tender heart,
Wait the loaded ferry-cart.
"Wait, ah, wait!" the ripple saith;
"Maiden, wait, for I am Death!"

'When my lover calls I haste-
Dame Disdain was never wedded!'
Ripple-ripple round her waist,
Clear the current eddied.

Foolish heart and faithful hand,
Little feet that touched no land.
Far away the ripple sped,
Ripple-ripple-running red! — Rudyard Kipling

We know nothing worth knowing about what goes on outside our frontiers. Worse-we know very little more about what goes on within them. Beyond the light of one's own personal experience-darkness. What are people thinking? What are they feeling? How do they behave? Messages of reassurance or exhortation come through. One reads between the lines. Friends pool their knowledge. But in general we live like animals, in ignorance of the world around us. — Michael Frayn

I like to be tired. In some ways, that's the point of what I do. I don't want to be thinking when I go to bed, or, if there is some residue from the day, I want it to drain out and precipitate me into nothingness. I've always enjoyed the idea of nonexistence. I view pets with extraordinary suspicion: we need to stay out of their lives. I saw a woman fish a little dog out of her purse once, and it bothered me for a year. It's not that there's anything wrong with my ability to communicate: I have a cell phone, but I only use it to call out. — Thomas McGuane

I suddenly look at the fish and feel horrible all over again, that old death scheme is now back only now I'm gonna put my big healthy Anglosaxon teeth into it and wrench away at the mournful flesh of a little living being that only an hour ago was swimming happily in the sea, in fact even Dave thinking this and saying: 'Ah yes that little muzzling mouth was blindly sucking away in the glad waters of life and now look at it, here's where the fittin head's chopped off, you don't have to look, us big drunken sinners are now going to use it for our sacrificial supper[ ... ] — Jack Kerouac

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

Big fish eats small fish; oceans need revolution! Big man beats little man; world needs revolution! Big galaxies swallow little galaxies; universe needs revolution! Anything which is not ethical needs a strong revolution! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Polynesian women are known for their long hair, glowing skin, and thick nails. And that comes from the local diet, which is mostly plant based with a little bit of fish and a lot of natural fats and oils. — Nikki Reed

When I was little, my Aunt Bigeois told me "If you look at yourself too long in the mirror, you'll see a monkey." I must have looked at myself even longer than that: what I see is well below the monkey, on the fringe of the vegetable world, at the level of jellyfish... The eyes especially are horrible seen so close. They are glassy, soft, blind, red-rimmed, they look like fish scales... A silky white down covers the great slopes of the cheeks, two hairs protrude from the nostrils: it is a geological embossed map. And, in spite of everything, this lunar world is familiar to me. I cannot say I recognize the details. But the whole thing gives me an impression of something seen before which stupefies me. — Jean-Paul Sartre

Apparently they died from overfeeding. Apparently I overfed them. Apparently fish are terrible glutons with absolutely no self-control who just don't know when they've had enough and will stuff themselves to death with those innocuous little beige flakes imaginatively labeled 'fish food. — Steve Toltz

And what of my extended family-birds, beasts, and reptiles? They too have drowned. Every single thing I value in life has been destroyed. And I am allowed no explanation? I am to suffer hell without any account from heaven? In that case, what is the purpose of reason, Richard Parker? Is it no more than to shine at practicalities-the getting of food, clothing and shelter? Why can't reason give greater answers? Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer? Why such a vast net if there's so little fish to catch? (pg. 98) — Yann Martel

I also enjoy canoeing, and I suppose you will smile when I say that I especially like it on moonlight nights. I cannot, it is true, see the moon climb up the sky behind the pines and steal softly across the heavens, making a shining path for us to follow; but I know she is there, and as I lie back among the pillows and put my hand in the water, I fancy that I feel the shimmer of her garments as she passes. Sometimes a daring little fish slips between my fingers, and often a pond-lily presses shyly against my hand. Frequently, as we emerge from the shelter of a cove or inlet, I am suddenly conscious of the spaciousness of the air about me. A luminous warmth seems to enfold me. Whether it comes from the trees which have been heated by the sun, or from the water, I can never discover. I have had the same strange sensation even in the heart of the city. I have felt it on cold, stormy days and at night. It is like the kiss of warm lips on my face. — Helen Keller

When frying small fish, disturb them little. — Confucius

In a mucked up lovely river, I cast my little fly. I look at that river and smell it And it makes me want to cry. Oh to clean our dirty planet, Now there's a noble wish, And I'm puttin' my shoulder to the wheel 'Cause I wanna catch some fish. — Greg Brown

A net across the Little Trickle won't catch fish in the Watercress River. — Carol Kendall

After half an hour of forced family fun, in which I score fifty points and take out at least seventy-five percent of my anger trying to blast Frankie with the ball, our game is cut short. Princess gets stung on the top of her foot by a teeny-tiny newborn baby of a jelly-fish and carries on like some shark just swam away with her torso. For one brief moment I wonder if it's the ghost of my journal, reincarnated after its watery death to claim vengeance by stabbing her with its thin metal spiral. The thought makes me smile on the inside, just a little bit. — Sarah Ockler

Though no participator in the joy of more vehement sport, I have a pleasure that I cannot reconcile to my abstract notions of the tenderness due to dumb creatures in the tranquil cruelty of angling. I can only palliate the wanton destructiveness of my amusement by trying to assure myself that my pleasure does not spring from the success of the treachery I practise toward a poor little fish, but rather from that innocent revelry in the luxuriance of summer life which only anglers enjoy to the utmost. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

It was a beauty fire, it contained soul, the sides of sunshine mountains, hot streams of smiling fish, warm stockings smelling a bit like toast. I held my hand over the little flame. I had beautiful hands. that one thing I had. I had beautiful hands. — Charles Bukowski

This beach I voyage on leads me through the earth's immortal consistencies. Each form I encounter obeys the principles of perfection and trial, a timelessness in the making. The proportions of truth are at hand. Existence is celebrated in a splinter of driftwood, worn by wind-driven sand into the shape of an arrow. The onshore waves jostle each other, busy with their eternal changing, mixing crab shells, sand grains, and fish bones together. The trim little shorebirds feeding at the water's edge are acutely aware of one another, under the light and shadow leaning and drifting over all awareness. Wither own mysteries behind their beady eyes, their quick, advantageous movements, they follow the great, unifying sea." ~ John Hay. Bird of Light. — John Hay

I just like The Little Mermaid cartoon. Say what you want. I have a fish tank, it's a long story. I have a fascination with the ocean, and you put a hot chick in there, it just adds more to it! I liked The Little Mermaid. It's a cool movie. It's one of those I watch over and over again. — Gabriel Iglesias

If you're wearing smoky eye makeup, a little beige or gold pencil on the inner eye corners will open up the area, but you only want to do it if the shadow is really dark. Otherwise, light pencil makes your eyes look too far apart, like a fish. — Gisele Bundchen

But I can say just as surely that this minute, in a northern-California valley, I can taste-smell-hear-see and feel between my teeth the potato chips I ate slowly one November afternoon in 1936, in the bar of the Lausanne Palace. They were uneven in both thickness and color, probably made by a new apprentice in the hotel kitchen, and almost surely they smelled faintly of either chicken or fish, for that was always the case there. They were a little too salty, to encourage me to drink. They were ineffable. I am still nourished by them. That is probably why I can be so firm about not eating my way through barrels, tunnels, mountains more of them here in the land where they hang like square cellophane fruit on wire trees in all grocery stores, to tempt me sharply every time I pass them. — Mary Francis Kennedy Fisher

When they started to drain a swamp where birds and fish had lived, for a new housing development down the road from his apartment, Steven watched the protests and the preparations with interest. The bird people were furious, the developers unmovable, and Steven was filled with relief that the fight wasn't his. Nothing here was his ... He thought there should have been something sad about how little he was tied up with the place, but instead it felt like freedom. He was free because it wasn't his water here, and they weren't his fish. — Maile Meloy

Look - here's a table covered with a red cloth. On it is a cage the size of a small fish aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes. In its front paws is a carrot-stub upon which it is contentedly munching. On its back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the numeral 8. Do we see the same thing? We'd have to get together and compare notes to make absolutely sure, but I think we do. There will be necessary variations, of course: some receivers will see a cloth which is turkey red, some will see one that's scarlet, while others may see still other shades. (To color-blind receivers, the red tablecloth is the dark gray of cigar ashes.) Some may see scalloped edges, some may see straight ones. Decorative souls may add a little lace, and welcome - my tablecloth is your tablecloth, knock yourself out. — Stephen King

Fish where the fish are. Don't — J.R. Little

I have human friends, obviously. But everything's easier with a cat. He wants a little fish soup in a saucer and the occasional scratch on the head. I want the illusion that an animal bred to trade affection for food can understand the inquietudes of my soul. — Anthony Marra

I cannot have a man who is afraid of everything, I don't have the time to soothe insecurities and fears, I cannot have a man who is standing on a stone by a creek, watching for the fish to swim by and every time he sees a fish he says "Oh look, this fish scares me, I wonder what this fish means, this fish might mean- this, or this fish might mean- that" for God's sake, they are just fish, and they don't mean anything! Such a sad thing, so many fine, strong men standing on top of little stones, pointing at fish all the time! Such a waste! Such a waste of time! I can only have a man who will leap into the water, not minding the damn fish and whatever other little things that scare him. I need to have someone who is braver than me; if I am a pirate, he has to be the pirate Captain, if I am a pirate Captain he has to be the flying dragon. — C. JoyBell C.

How peaceful it was, with the light evening breeze stirring the small leaves of the grapevine that clustered around the electric bulb, making the shadows move and change on the yellow mat below. For a moment he pushed aside the thought of money. From time to time the dark water beside them rippled audibly, as if a tiny fish had come to the surface for an instant and then darted beneath. It was in peaceful moments such as this, his father had said, that men were given to know just a little of what paradise was like, so that they might yearn for it with all their soul,and strive during their time on earth to be worthy of going there. — Paul Bowles

Frog in a little pond can be much happier than fish in a vast ocean! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Odd choice of a word, isn't it? Fish is either singular, or plural. Imagine my surprise when I walked in the study and found not one fish in a tiny fish bowl, but an entire aquarium."
She practically vibrated for the need to fight. "Otto was lonely and you were practicing animal cruelty. He was too isolated. Now, he has friends and a place to swim."
"Yes, nice little tunnels and rocks and algae to play hide and seek with his buddies. — Jennifer Probst

You don't understand people like me, like us, the other ones. You're like a bird that flies in the air, a fish that swims in the sea. You move, you look about you, you want things. There are others who live on earth and move just a little and don't look
— Iris Murdoch

O LORD, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth! Your glory is higher than the heavens. 2 You have taught children and infants to tell of your strength,[*] silencing your enemies and all who oppose you. 3 When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers - the moon and the stars you set in place - 4 what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?[*] 5 Yet you made them only a little lower than God[*] and crowned them[*] with glory and honor. 6 You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority - 7 the flocks and the herds and all the wild animals, 8 the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that swims the ocean currents. 9 O LORD, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth! — Anonymous

A little of this caviar finds its way to the fish restaurants around Istanbul's Taksim Square, but the bulk is sent on to the United Arab Emirates to be enjoyed by wealthy Westerners and Arabs in the preposterous hotels that have set new standards in unnecessary opulence. — Misha Glenny

Little fish risking everything for a piece of godhood ... and not knowing heaven from hell, even when they find it. — Vernor Vinge

There is a little Juliet inside me, hoping I will lock eyes with my Romeo on the other side of a fish tank or through a gap in a library bookcase. Hell, even if it's behind the condiments section in a supermarket. I don't really mind. — Jessica Thompson

Adina gave a little shriek. "That fish just swam past my leg! Creepy! Where did it go?"
"To your right! Two o'clock! Get it!"
"You are officially the most bloodthirsty vegetarian ever. — Libba Bray

An optimal diet for preventing disease is a whole-foods, plant-based diet that is naturally low in animal protein, harmful fats and refined carbohydrates. What that means in practice is little or no red meat; mostly vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes and soy products in their natural forms; very few simple and refined carbohydrates such as sugar and white flour; and sufficient "good fats" such as fish oil or flax oil, seeds and nuts. A healthful diet should be low in "bad fats," meaning trans fats, saturated fats and hydrogenated fats. Finally, we need more quality and less quantity. — Anonymous

Dex lowered his voice, growling as his fingers moved the puppet's little paws. "Hi, I'm Ash. My hobbies include shooting things, shooting things, and uh, shooting things. Oh and I like fish. — Charlie Cochet

Time is just common, it's like water for a fish. Everybody's in this water, nobody gets out of it, or if he does the same thing happens to him that happens to the fish, he dies. And you know what happens in this water, time? The big fish eat the little fish. That's all. The big fish eat the little fish and the ocean doesn't care. — James Baldwin

There's a big difference between merely carrying the world inside you and knowing that you do! A madman can produce ideas that resemble Plato's, and a pious little schoolboy in a Herrnhut institute can creatively reconstruct profound mythological associations in his mind, ideas to be found in the Gnostics or Zoroaster. But he doesn't know he's doing it! He's a tree or a stone, at best an animal, just as long as he doesn't know that. But when the first spark of that knowledge glimmers, he becomes a human being. You certainly don't consider all the bipeds running around the street to be human beings merely because they walk upright and carry their young for nine months? After all, you see how many of them are fish or sheep, worms or leeches, how many are ants, how many are bees! Now, each one of them has the potentiality of becoming a human being, but only when he senses that potential, when he even learns to be conscious of it to some degree, does that potential belong to him. — Hermann Hesse

Inside my heart there is
A temple, a synagogue,
a church, a mosque,
A monastery, a fish market
A serene lake, a tempestuous sea
Agreements and disagreements
Glory and failure
A big bang at dawn and
a little bang at dusk
All the cries, aspirations and
silent prayers
Yearning and seeking
Everything disintegrates
and dissolves
In a tempestuous ocean
Finally unifies
Collapses on one altar
In one Breath
In God — Gabriel Iqbal

He tried to learn seductive phrases in all languages, but the only Swedish he had ever really needed was, "Do you serve anything aside from pickled fish?" and "If you wrap me in furs, I can pretend to be your little fuzzy bear. — Cassandra Clare

Here's what I like about God: Trees are crooked, mountains are lumpy, a lot of his creatures are funny-looking, and he made it all anyway. He didn't let the aardvark convince him he had no business designing creatures. He didn't make a puffer fish and get discouraged. No, the maker made things - and still does. European film directors often enjoy creative careers, during which their films mature from the manifestos of angry young men to the rueful wisdom of great works by creative masters. Is an afternoon siesta the secret? Is their vita just a little more dolce? We've taken espresso to our American hearts, but we haven't quite taken to the "break" in our coffee breaks. Worried about playing the fool, we forget how to simply play. We try to make our creativity linear and goal oriented. We want our "work" to lead somewhere. We forget that diversions do more than merely divert us. — Julia Cameron

People blanch to see "fish meal" or "meat meal" on a pet-food ingredient panel, but meal
which variously includes organs, heads, skin, and bones
most closely resembles the diet of dogs and cats in the wild. Muscle meat is a grand source of protein, but comparatively little else. — Mary Roach

Poor little Roxxi, she felt as if she was a tiny fish that had suddenly been thrown into the large sea. — Amy Benton

balanced diet of low-sugar, low-salt whole foods, little or no red meat, possibly fish, and lots of fruits and vegetables, as well as exercise, stimulates the production of neurotransmitters, hormones, and neurotrophic proteins.15 All of the above contribute to good brain chemistry. Exercise especially leads to healthy and even new brain cells that rid themselves of toxins and communicate well with each other. As a result of exercise and good nutrition, we become inoculated against stress, feel energized, and stay younger, healthier, and more focused. While in this context I can only hint at mind-body fitness, it is surely part of the foundation of our well-being. — Andrea Polard

I just learned how to scuba dive. I'd been scared to rely on one little air hose for oxygen, but swimming with all those fish is exhilarating. — Cheryl Hines

It is better to die fighting than to die on your knees. — Emiliano Zapata

I picked ducks in a tub in my dorm room. I'd hang deer in the doorway between the bedroom and the little living room in our little apartment there, and I'd skin my deer, and all the guts would go in the tub, and I'd sneak them out so my fellow students on both sides wouldn't see all that, you know. I'd clean fish up there and all. — Phil Robertson

A strange feeling: as if filaments trailed from Arin's body. A thousand fishing lines snagging attention. Here and there. Little tugs. People caught on the lines. The way sometimes people couldn't look him in the eye, and when they did they become fish trying to breath air.
He wished it weren't like that.
He knew it would be necessary. — Marie Rutkoski

I felt curiously aloof from my own self. No temptations maddened me. The plump, glossy little Eskimo girls with their fish smell, hideous raven hair and guinea pig faces, evoked even less desire in me than Dr. Johnson had. — Vladimir Nabokov

It's the pool where we all go down to drink, to swim, to catch a little fish from the edge of the shore; it's also the pool where some hardy souls go out in their flimsy wooden boats after the big ones. It is the pool of life, the cup of imagination, and she has an idea that different people see different versions of it, but with two things ever in common: it's always about a mile deep in the Fairy Forest, and it's always sad. Because imagination isn't the only thing this place is about. — Stephen King

Over and over, I ran at the sea, beating it until I was so tired I could barely stand. And then the next time I fell down, I just lay there and let the waves wash over me, and I wondered what would happen if I stopped trying to get back up. Just let my body go. Would I be washed out to sea? The sharks would eat my limbs and organs. Little fish would feed on my fingertips. My beautiful white bones would fall to the bottom of the ocean, where anemones would grow upon them like flowers. Pearls would rest in my eye sockets. — Ruth Ozeki

If I've gone to the market on Saturday, and I go another time on Tuesday, then I'm really prepared. I can cook a little piece of fish; I can wilt some greens with garlic; I can slice tomatoes and put a little olive oil on. It's effortless. — Alice Waters

Two young salmon are swimming along one day. As they do, they are passed by a wiser, older fish coming the other way. The wiser fish greets the two as he passes, saying, "Morning boys, how's the water?" The other two continue to swim in silence for a little while, until the first one turns to the other and asks, "What the hell is water?" — David Foster Wallace

Consummation Of Grief

I even hear the mountains
the way they laugh
up and down their blue sides
and down in the water
the fish cry
and the water
is their tears.
I listen to the water
on nights I drink away
and the sadness becomes so great
I hear it in my clock
it becomes knobs upon my dresser
it becomes paper on the floor
it becomes a shoehorn
a laundry ticket
it becomes
cigarette smoke
climbing a chapel of dark vines. . .
it matters little
very little love is not so bad
or very little life
what counts
is waiting on walls
I was born for this
I was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead. — Charles Bukowski

Beside us lies a fair-headed recruit in utter terror. He has buried his face in his hands, his helmet has fallen off. I fish hold of it and try to put it back on his head. He looks up, pushes the helmet off and like a child creeps under my arm, his head close to my breast. The little shoulders heave. Shoulders just like Kemmerich's. I let him be. — Erich Maria Remarque

Books are written little by little ... as the cat eats the fish. — Lynda K. Scott

The Feynman quip is not without a philosopher's tu quoque: "most scientists tend to understand little more about science than fish about hydrodynamics" (Lakatos 1978:62 n.2). — Robert Nola

Fishing provides time to think, and reason not to. If you have the virtue of patience, an hour or two of casting alone is plenty of time to review all you've learned about the grand themes of life. It's time enough to realize that every generalization stands opposed by a mosaic of exceptions, and that the biggest truths are few indeed. Meanwhile, you feel the wind shift and the temperature change. You might simply decide to be present, and observe a few facts about the drifting clouds ... Fishing in a place is a meditation on the rhythm of a tide, a season, the arc of a year, and the seasons of life ... I fish to scratch the surface of those mysteries, for nearness to the beautiful, and to reassure myself the world remains. I fish to wash off some of my grief for the peace we so squander. I fish to dip into that great and awesome pool of power that propels these epic migrations. I fish to feel- and steal- a little of that energy. — Carl Safina

Never coming back here, she thought.
With a groan, she levered herself into a sitting position and discovered a painful crick in her neck. Never ever. She launched herself off the bed and limped over to the door and put here eye to the viewer, was treated to a fish-eye view of a small, dapper, well-dressed man holding a bunch of white roses.
Okay. Man with flowers. Carey looked around the room. The windows opened on short tethers so guests couldn't throw furniture or each other out into the street, and she was too high to jump anyway. She looked around the room again, looking for possible weapons. There was a rickety-looking chair by the desk in the corner, but it would probably fall to bits even before she hit anyone with it. She looked through the viewer. The little man knocked again. Not urgently, not in an official we-have-come-to-take-you-to-the-gulag kind of way, but in the manner of a gentleman visiting his lady friend with a nice bunch of roses. — Dave Hutchinson

The river reflected whatever it chose of sky and bridge and burning tree, and when the undergraduate had oared his boat through the reflections they closed again, completely, as if they had never been. There one might have sat the clock round lost in thought. Thought
to call it by a prouder name than it deserved
had let its line down into the stream. It swayed, minute after minute, hither and thither among the reflections and the weeds, letting the water lift it and sink it until
you know the little tug
the sudden conglomeration of an idea at the end of one's line: and then the cautious hauling of it in, and the careful laying of it out? Alas, laid on the grass how small, how insignificant this thought of mine looked; the sort of fish that a good fisherman puts back into the water so that it may grow fatter and be one day worth cooking and eating. — Virginia Woolf

Most of the things at the zoo don't look like us. We're one design that works. Our chimp pals sort of look like us, so that's a different take on the same basic design. But fish don't look like us, and giraffes don't. They look a little like us, but not too much. And insects certainly don't look like us, and they work just fine. — Seth Shostak

I live here as a fish in a vessel of water, only enough to keep me alive, ut in heaven I shall swim in the ocean. Here I have little air in me to keep me breathing, but there I shall have sweet and fresh gales; Here I have a beam of sun to lighten my darkness, a warm ray to keep me from freezing; yonder I shall live in light and warmth for ever. — Arthur Bennett

We pay a lot of money to get a tank with a few tropical fish in it and never tire of looking at their brilliant iridescence and marvelous forms and movements. But God has seas full of them, which he constantly enjoys. (I can hardly take in these beautiful little creatures one at a time.) We are enraptured by a well-done movie sequence or by a few bars from an opera or lines from a poem. We treasure our great experiences for a lifetime, and we may have very few of them. But he is simply one great inexhaustible and eternal experience of all that is good and true and beautiful and right. This is what we must think of when we hear theologians and philosophers speak of him as a perfect being. This is his life. — Dallas Willard

Govern large countries
like you cook little fish. — Lao-Tzu

Early Summer, loveliest season,
The world is being colored in.
While daylight lasts on the horizon,
Sudden, throaty blackbirds sing.

The dusty-colored cuckoo cuckoos.
"Welcome, summer" is what he says.
Winter's unimaginable.
The wood's a wickerwork of boughs.

Summer means the river's shallow,
Thirsty horses nose the pools.
Long heather spreads out on bog pillows.
White bog cotton droops in bloom.

Swallows swerve and flicker up.
Music starts behind the mountain.
There's moss and a lush growth underfoot.
Spongy marshland glugs and stutters.

Bog banks shine like ravens' wings.
The cuckoo keeps on calling welcome.
The speckled fish jumps; and the strong
Swift warrior is up and running.

A little, jumpy, chirpy fellow
Hits the highest note there is;
The lark sings out his clear tidings.
Summer, shimmer, perfect days. — Marie Heaney

Indeed if fish had fish-lore and Wise-fish, it is probable that the business of anglers would be very little hindered. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Raw fish suppers admittedly require a little planning, not least in the acquisition of the main ingredient. — Yotam Ottolenghi

You shoulda married someone, a whole lot more like you
drink coffee in the little cafes, and you could go out shopping too.
I shoulda married someone, who likes to camp and fish, and make love for two days straight, And you say, "don't you wish".
You drive me crazy, with all the things you do and do not do. Umm, I love you so much, I'm gonna drive you crazy too. — Greg Brown

The truth is, fish have very little sex life. If you have ever tried to make love under water, you will know why. — Ed Zern

Reply implicitly upon the old, old gospel. You need no other nets when you fish for men; those your Master has given you are strong enough to hold the little ones. Spread these nets and no others, and you need not fear the fulfillment of His word, 'I will make you fishers of men.' — Charles Spurgeon

Peacock bass like to hide at ambush points, away from the strong canal currents. If you fish early and know those peacock hangouts, you will have little or no trouble catching peacocks on lures and live bait. — Mark Hall

Summertime And the living is easy Fish are jumpin' And the cotton is high Oh, your daddy's rich And your mama's good lookin' So hush little baby now don't you cry One of these mornin's You're gonna rise up singin' Then you'll spread your wings And take to the sky But til that mornin' Ain't nothin' can harm you With your daddy And your mammy standin' by. — George Gershwin

I'd rather be a big fish in a specialized pond than a little, little fish in a more generalized big pond. — Leonard Lauder

She tied him a fly, using a pattern she'd designed, one that had given her untold luck with those silvery fish, those fighting steelhead. She was anxious for his return.
"Does it have a name?" he said, when she gave it to him.
"The Predator." She smiled. A little embarrassed.
His eyes turned dark, and her heart beat faster. His voice dipped low. "It's a fine name."
He regarded her for several heavy, silent beats. She felt an atavistic pull, the hairs on her arms rising toward him, as if in electrical attraction. He leaned closer and her mouth turned dry. And he told her about the wild blueberries. Down by the bend in the river.
She took the lure.
She went in search of the berries.
She never came home. — Loreth Anne White

You would never do anything like that, would you?" my wife asked him. "You would never hurt animals."
Our son shook his head, looking offended by the question. He might have been lying, but my knowledge of his belief system, composed of equal parts off-kilter Far Side animal-centrism and a dark Captain Nemoesque contempt for humanity, inclined me to think he was telling the truth. Gigantic fish pulling the limbs from cruel little boys, that might be something you could get him to sign on for. — Michael Chabon

All space is relative. There is no such thing as size. The telescope and the microscope have produced a deadly leveling of great and small, far and near. The only little thing is sin, the only great thing is fear!
("The Jelly-Fish") — David H. Keller

Flute Notes from a Reedy Pond
Now coldness comes sifting down, layer after layer,
To our bower at the lily root.
Overhead the old umbrellas of summer Wither like pithless hands.
There is little shelter.
Hourly the eye of the sky enlarges its blank
Dominion. The stars are no nearer. Already frog-mouth and fish-mouth drink The liquor of indolence, and all thing sink Into a soft caul of forgetfulness. The fugitive colors die. Caddis worms drowse in their silk cases,
The lamp-headed nymphs are nodding to sleep like statues.
Puppets, loosed from the strings of the puppetmaster
Wear masks of horn to bed. This is not death, it is something safer. The wingy myths won't tug at us anymore: The molts are tongueless that sang from above the water Of golgotha at the tip of a reed,
And how a god flimsy as a baby's finger
Shall unhusk himself and steer into the air. — Sylvia Plath

A nothing day full of wild beauty ... Little fish stream by, a river in water. — James Schuyler

It's very rare you get a director who's that invested in the actors. So yeah, when 'Little Fish' came around, there wasn't much negotiation! — Martin Henderson

Alex was growing in prominence. I noticed him trending on Twitter from time to time, for telling his now millions of fans that U.S. scientists were covertly creating "man-fish hybrids," that atheists "worship Lucifer," and that the government puts secret chemicals in juice boxes to turn Americans gay: "After you're done drinking your little juices you're ready to put makeup on, wear a short skirt, put together a garden of roses or something." And — Jon Ronson

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful-
The eye of the little god, four cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish. — Sylvia Plath

'Little Fish' has reminded me why I fell in love with acting in the first place. — Martin Henderson

The practical objection to animal food in my case was its uncleanness; and besides, when I had caught and cleaned and cooked and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me essentially. It was insignificant and unnecessary, and cost more than it came to. A little bread or a few potatoes would have done as well, with less trouble and filth. — Henry David Thoreau

One man is proud when he has caught a poor hare, and another when he has taken a little fish in a net, and another when he has taken wild boars, and another when he has taken bears ... Are these not robbers? — Marcus Aurelius

I knew something was wrong with me that summer, because all I could think about was the Rosenbergs and how stupid I'd been to buy all those uncomfortable, expensive clothes, hanging limp as fish in my closet, and how all the little successes I'd totted up so happily at college fizzled to nothing outside the slick marble and plate-glass fronts along Madison Avenue. — Sylvia Plath

You pompous little bitch!" the infuriated Were shouted, red-faced and with his thugs backing him. "What are you doing here?"
Mrs. Sarong pushed past the men who had put themselves in front of her. "Arranging your removal," she said, her voice sharp and her eyes glaring. Removal? As if he were an overgrown tree clogging the sewer line?
The short businessman seemed to choke on his own breath, becoming choleric. Mouth gaping to look like one of his prize fish, he struggled to respond. "Like hell you are!" he finally managed. "That's what I wanted to talk to her about!"
From my shoulder came a small, "Holy crap, Rache. How did you become Cincy's assassin of choice? — Kim Harrison

But it was pointless, it was stupid; he thought about thoughtless things. If I were a seabird ... but how could you be a seabird? If you were a seabird your brain would be tiny and stupid and you would love half-rotted fish guts and tweaking the eyes out of little grazing animals; you would know no poetry and you could never appreciate flying as fully as the human on the ground yearning to be you.
If you wanted to be a seabird you deserved to be one. — Iain M. Banks

I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him truly that will put me in trust: to love him that is honest; to converse with him that is wise, and says little; to fear judgment; to fight when I cannot choose; and to eat no fish. — William Shakespeare

If we were taught to cook as we are taught to walk, encouraged first to feel for pebbles with our toes, then to wobble forward and fall, then had our hands firmly tugged on so we would try again, we would learn that being good at it relies on something deeply rooted, akin to walking, to get good at which we need only guidance, senses, and a little faith. We aren't often taught to cook like that, so when we watch people cook naturally, in what looks like an agreement between cook and cooked, we think that they were born with an ability to simply know that an egg is done, that the fish needs flipping, and that the soup needs salt. Instinct, whether on the ground or in the kitchen, is not a destination but a path. — Tamar Adler

Like seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly realizing: This is a dead fish. A dead bird. A dead pig. Or that this noble vintage is grape juice, and the purple robes are sheep wool dyed with shellfish blood. Or making love - something rubbing against your penis, a brief seizure and a little cloudy liquid. Perceptions like that - latching onto things and piercing through them, so we see what they really are. That's what we need to do all the time - all through our lives when things lay claim to our trust - to lay them bare and see how pointless they are, to strip away the legend that encrusts them. Pride is a master of deception: when you think you're occupied in the weightiest business, that's when he has you in his spell. — Marcus Aurelius

My friend Ed Begley goes fishing. It's a little smelly to me, I don't like it so much. I like to eat fish, but I don't like to catch them. — Jeff Goldblum

They'll want to kill the crazies first. Big fish eat little fish -- always have, always will. — Allan Dare Pearce