Koi Fish Quotes

I catch a flash of red-gold beneath the surface of the water, and realize that there are koi in the pond, massive, serene, and I wonder: are they dreams of fish, or fish who dream?

Boyfriends are like koi fish: a time-consuming and boring hobby.

What if it’s a shy fish? Is that a 'coy koi?' What? Don’t hate me because I’m asking the important questions.

The sun spangled the big pond, and through the quivers of light, we watched scores of fat koi that swam there from spring through autumn before being moved to indoor aquariums. Mom bought a twenty-five-cent bag of bread cubes, and the fish ventured right up to us, fins wimpling, mouths working, and we fed them. I felt the most unexpected tenderness toward those koi, because they were so beautiful and colorful and, I don’t know, like music made flesh. My mom kept pointing to this one and that one—how red, how orange, how yellow, how golden—and suddenly I couldn’t talk about them because my throat grew tight. I knew if I talked about them, my voice would tremble, and I might even tear up. I wondered what was wrong with me. They were just fish. Maybe I was turning sissy, but at least I fed the last of the bread to them without embarrassing myself. Almost half a century later, I feel that same tenderness toward nearly everything that swims and flies and walks on all fours, and I’m not embarrassed. Creation moves and astonishes if you let it. When I realize how unlikely it is that anything at all should live on this world spun together from dust and hot gases, that creatures of almost infinite variety should at night look up at the stars, I know that it’s all more fragile than it appears, and I think maybe the only thing that keeps the Earth alive and turning is our love for it.

We’re supposed to challenge convention. To practice free will. It is only then we can know Him. If we don’t, we are just mountains, blades of grass, white koi fish, lilac petals; ceaselessly performing predictable tasks governed by a determined fate.

Me and Minnow grin back. We’re standing on a street corner with everything we’ve ever known about to come crashing down around us. And we’re angry. And we’re smiling. And we aren’t broken. THINGS THAT DON’T TAKE UP ANY SPACE AT ALL my humor my courage my joy When our group is finally called, we’re the last people to board, and as me and Minnow follow Mom to the back of the bus, we fish into our pockets for dogs, koi,

She was the golden koi fish. Or rather, it represented her.

At the Chinese restaurant, I stared out the window overlooking a tranquil garden with water features, ponds covered in lily pads, and koi fish. Amid the serenity and smell of dumplings, I struggled to breathe. It seemed the walls were closing in, and everyone was looking at me. Words danced around on the menu. I didn’t want the waiter near us. I wanted to shrink until I popped and disappeared.

Fish are good for eating. But we wouldn’t eat these fish.” “Because they’re pretty.” “No, because they’re bottom feeders. See how their mouths are formed? When they finish with these pellets, they’ll go down to the bottom of the pond and feed off whatever garbage they find there.” He hunkered next to Timmy, watching the swirling koi and thinking how people could swallow little bites of truth on Sunday morning and then dine on garbage all through the week. They could look beautiful, sleek, and healthy and be filled with all manner of evil.

The office of my daughter’s house is my new home. I sleep on something called a futon. I can sleep comfortably enough. When I wake up in the morning and the light is coming in the window, the painting that she made of koi fish in a pond looks like it is golden and shining. When I lie down on my futon bed in the afternoon or the evening, the gold and shine are gone. Sometimes something looks one way for a time and then becomes another thing. The fish are flat and orange, black and white. The painting doesn’t have anything to say. Above my futon is a crack in the ceiling, a big long crack. I lie here in the dark, but I can still see the crack. It frightens me because it means something is broken.