Janet Fish Quotes

A fish has no concept of water.

I'm a fish swimming by...catch me if you want me.

The world that was the emonation of divine had been reduced to a handful of dust. Thousands of people, all caught in profile looked into their mobile fish tanks. Each face, each car, transporting grief, boredom, rage. Someone in one of these cars was contemplating murder. Someone, rite now, in the privecy of his aquarium, threaded the beads of his suicide through his fingers, praying along the chain like a rosary. Someone begged for help from a God he didnt quite believe in, yet had no one else to appeal to.

I'm a fish swimming by Ray. Catch me if you want me.

Every second a million petitions wing past the ear of God. Let it be door number two. Get Janet through this. Make Mom fall in love again, make the pain go away, make this key fit. If I fish this cove, plant this field, step into this darkness, give me the strength to see it through. Help my marriage, my sister, me. What will this fund be worth in thirteen days? In thirteen years? Will I be around in thirteen years? And the most unanswerable of unanswerables: Don't let me die. And: What will happen afterward? Chandeliers and choirs? Flocks of souls like starlings harrying across the sky? Eternity; life again as bacteria, or as sunflowers, or as a leatherback turtle; suffocating blackness; cessation of all cellular function.

She cut a small piece of the gravalax and put it on a piece of black bread, daintily spooned a bit of dill sauce onto it, and ate it like it was the last piece of food in the world. I tried to imitate her, eating so slowly, tasting the raw pink fish and the coarse, sour bread, salt and sugar around the rind, flavors and scents like colors on a palette, like the tones in music.

I could see the two of us in the round mirror on the wall, our long hair down, our blue eyes. Norsewomen. When I saw us like this, I could almost remember fishing in cold deep seas, the smell of cod, the charcoal of our fires, our felt boots and our strange alphabet, runes like sticks, a language like the ploughing of fields.

Dad's on a fishing boat in front of Carter's estate. If we get into trouble, all I have to do is press the button on the tiny transmitter in my pocket and he'll destroy the dome on top of Carter's house. Is that enough of a distraction for you?" "Maybe we can work out something a little more subtle.

Michael, in a motel in Twentynine Palms, a gun in his hands. Not at Meredith's, painting in an explosion of new creation. Not over on Sunset, digging through the record bins, or at Launderland separating the darks and lights. Not at the Chinese market, looking at the fish with their still-bright eyes. Not at the Vista watching an old movie. Not sketching down at Echo Park. He was in a motel room in Twentynine Palms, putting a bullet in his brain.

There were a number of reasons for decreeing abstention from meat. In ancient times meat was thought to inflame the passions (thereby distracting the mind from higher thoughts) whereas fish (or rather, creatures that lived in the water, which included whales and 'porpuses') were seen as cooling. It was also believed that the characteristics or habits of everything in the natural world would be transmitted to the eater, so the fact that fish did not have an obvious sex life added to its suitability for days of religious observance.

How would you like to come to the science room after school and help feed the fish and the lizard? While you’re there, we could look at obsidian under the microscope.” Ben loved doing after-school chores in the science lab, and he was especially fascinated by the microscope. It wasn’t long before he was collecting water samples from a nearby stream and studying them under the microscope. When he thought about his new interest in science, Ben realized it had everything to do with turning off the television and reading books from the library. In fact, he realized that reading those books was helping in every area of his schooling.

Of course not, Janet had all the charm of a two-day old fish.

Why couldn't the astronaut book a hotel on the moon? Because it was already full. What do you get when you cross an elephant with a fish?

Death. Life. A fish dies. A billion mites eat it and live. In the swamp there is no difference.” “There is to the fish,” Janet said. “You’re a shitty philosopher, so don’t try.

When was the last time you saw on a menu a chewet (a small, round pie of finely chopped meat or fish, with spices and fruit, 'made taller than a marrow pie'), a dowlet (a small pie of particularly dainty little tidbits), a herbelade or hebolace (a pie with pork mince and herb mixture), a talemouse (a sort of cheesecake, sometimes triangular in shape) or a vaunt (a type of a fruit pie)? these words (and more) were once everyday words in a baker's vocabulary. The only conclusion it is possible to draw is that the loss of so many pie-words reflects the loss of the pies themselves.

The city of Gloucester, by ancient custom, presented a lamprey pie to the sovereign at Christmas time, as a token of loyalty. Lampreys are scaleless freshwater sucker-fish resembling eels, desirable in the past for their oily, gamey flesh. The tradition of gifting lamprey pies to the royal family continued until the end of Queen Victoria's reign, but was revived for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 when a 42-pound pie was cooked by the RAF catering crops.

In the fishing village of Mousehole in Cornwall it is traditional to eat 'stargazy pie' on the evening of 23 December. It is an intriguing pie, made with pilchards placed so that their heads poke through the crust at the centre of the pie, gazing at the stars, as it were. It is made in honour of a local mythical hero, Tom Bawcock ('bawcock' is an old word meaning 'a fine fellow'), whom legend says sent out on a bad night during a bad season, returning with sufficient fish to save the locals from starvation.