Many of us probably would be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect.

Something within fishermen tries to make fishing into a world perfect and apart — I don't know what it is or where, because sometimes it is in my arms and sometimes in my throat and sometimes nowhere in particular except somewhere deep. Many of us probably would be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect.

Even though Paul must have had three or four fish by now, I took my time walking down the trail, trying with each step to leave the world behind. Something within fishermen tries to make fishing into a world perfect and apart — I don't know what it is or where, because sometimes nowhere in particular except somewhere deep. Many of us probably would be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect.

The hardest thing usually to leave behind, as was the case now, can loosely be called the conscience.

Some people spend their entire lives waiting for the time to be right to make an improvement.

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

There is a time to fish and a time to mend nets.

If the world was perfect, it wouldn't be.

Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be?

If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be.

A fisherman who wasn’t a born pessimist hadn’t been going to sea long enough.

Teach all men to fish, but first teach all men to be fair. Take less, give more. Give more of yourself, take less from the world. Nobody owes you anything, you owe the world everything.

Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite. Or waiting around for Friday night or waiting perhaps for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil or a better break or a string of pearls or a pair of pants or a wig with curls or another chance. Everyone is just waiting.

"Most of us go through life as failures, because we are waiting for the "time to be right" to start doing something worthwhile. Do not wait. The time will never be "just right.

I had the opportunity to fish as a kid, I just follow through with it. I'm not the best fisherman in the world, but I have a lot more fun than a lot of my other fishing friends in this world, who think they're supposedly experts. Sometimes the fish cooperate, sometimes they don't.