“the mangrove killfish, lives in South American and southern US coastal swamps that can either dry up or become so toxic that the fish has to find refuge in the mud or by flipping and jumping across land. Amazingly, its skin and gills change so the killfish can breathe air and survive out of the water for as long as ten weeks.”

“Of course they don't function as gills, but five-week human embryos can be regarded as little pink fishes, with gills.”

“We jumped into water so clear and warm that it was like jumping from air to air. The sand rose up under us and we floated to where it met the sea and walked out of the water like creatures in an act of evolution.”

“It's amazing the way one can take a step ten and a half miles long and still always land in a cowpat.”

“I smell the fresh sea air, and have never felt so at home in my life, out on the open waters, no land as far as the eye can see. It's amazing, beautiful and the air smells of adventure, just the way it should. Just the way it always would if I could control everythig.”

“Out of the choked Devonian waters emerged sight and sound and the music that rolls invisible through the composer's brain. They are there still in the ooze along the tideline, though no one notices. The world is fixed, we say: fish in the sea, birds in the air. But in the mangrove swamps by the Niger, fish climb trees and ogle uneasy naturalists who try unsuccessfully to chase them back to the water. There are things still coming ashore. ”