“Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.”

“Never forget," a Stranger said to me once in the lobby of the Midland Hotel in Manchester, "that only dead fish swim with the stream.”

“If you believe in your heart that you are right, then you must fight with all your might to do it your way. Only dead fish swim with the stream all the time.”

“Remember, a dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream.”

“You don't accomplish much by swimming with the mainstream. Hell, a dead fish can do that.”

“But why live in these environments at all? What possessed fish to get out of the water or live in the margins? Think of this: virtually every fish swimming in these 375-million-year-old streams was a predator of some kind. Some were up to sixteen feet long, almost twice the size of the largest Tiktaalik. The most common fish species we find alongside Tiktaalik is seven feet long and has a head as wide as a basketball. The teeth are barbs the size of railroad spikes. Would you want to swim in these ancient streams?”