“If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram and pattern of suble air.”

“It is hard for fish to be aware of water. It is hard for us to notice something that's an ingrained pattern shaping our habitual thought.”

“There is a kidney-shaped fish pool outside the picture window. I cleaned it out and put in some large goldfish I bought in a bait store. The cats are always trying to catch the fish, with no success. One time the white cat leapt for a frog across the pool. The frog dove in and the cat fell in. He is trouble-prone.”

“The fish in the water is silent, the animals on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing. But man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air.”

“Can one drown in one's element... If fish can drown in water, can human beings suffocate in air?”

“Bink knew the dolphin only from old pictures; it was a kind of magic fish that breathed air instead of water.”