I got to be quite the fish, I must say.

What do you need fish balls for?

Angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.

You're like a fisherman who fishes for years and catches a small fish. Sometimes a medium fish. [You] get lucky and get a big fish. But you know that there's a real big fish under there that always gets away. You and your group are going to get a lot of serial killers and they're going to help you. But with the real good ones, the only way you're going to know what goes on under the water is to go under the water. The fisherman drowns going underwater. But I can take you there without drowning. If I trust you. And if I decide.

When a trout rising to a fly gets hoooked on a line and finds himself unable to swim about freeely, he begins with a fight which results in struggles and splashes and sometimes an escape. Often, of course, the situation is too tough for him. In the same way the human being struggles with his environment and with the hooks that catch him. Sometimes he masters his difficulties; sometimes they are too much for him. His struggles are all that the world sees and it naturally misunderstands them. It is hard for a free fish to understand what is happening to a hooked one.

Anglers have a way of romanticizing their battles with fish and of forgetting that the fish has a hook in his mouth, his gullet, or his belly and that his gameness is really an extreme of panic in which he runs, leaps, and pulls to get away until he dies. It would seem to be enough advantage to the angler that the fish has the hook in his mouth rather than the angler.

It's like catching a fish, you know what I mean? It's the fish that's beautiful, not the fisherman. And I think whoever hasn't understood that attitude in Queens is not here any more. And if I ever think the fisherman's better than the fish, I hope someone fuckin' fires me too.

Old man’s gotta be the old man, fish has gotta be the fish. You gotta be who you are in this world, no matter what.

Fishing is a jerk at one end of a line waiting for a jerk at the other end of a line.

He's like a fish up a tree.

Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime ...
unless he doesn't like sushi, then you also have to teach him to cook.

Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper.

If you want to know about a Purse fish, you don’t beat the fish to death or drain the sea dry. You look at the fish where it is. You study how it swims and what it eats and how it lives. You don’t take hold of it, or kill it, you watch it. So, if you want to know who you are, you don’t go laying around with a pickax. You try to catch yourself when you’re not pushed by anybody or anything and watch yourself. You see what you do, and you figure out why, and you decide how that makes you feel, and how it affects others, and whether it makes you joyful or proud. “It’s amazing how many people don’t know their own nature, even though they can’t do anything with it until they know what it is. How can you move toward joy if you don’t know what makes you happy?” Simon shook his head. “Nobody’s required to live in pain. We should always try to move toward joy….” He looked up to meet Mouche’s smile, suddenly radiant. “Oh, Simon,” he said, “It’s not easy, but you’re right. And even the pain lights a road for you, doesn’t it? It beckons you to fix it! Like if you know something’s hurt, you can try to mend it.” Simon, surprised into near silence, agreed it could.

Be a lotus flower. Be in the water, and do not let the water touch you.