Carp Quotes

It wasn't the risk," I said, flicking my toes at a big black-and-white splotched carp. "Or not entirely. It was - well, it was partly fear, but mostly it was that I - I couldn't leave Jamie." I shrugged helplessly. "I - simply couldn't. ~ Diana Gabaldon

We really cannot see what equanimity there is in jerking a lacerated carp out of the water by the jaws, merely because it has no the power of making a noise; for we presume that the most philosophic of anglers would hardly delight in catching a shrieking fish. ~ Leigh Hunt

Bumblebees detect the polarization of sunlight, invisible to uninstrumented humans; put vipers sense infrared radiation and detect temperature differences of 0.01C at a distance of half a meter; many insects can see ultraviolet light; some African freshwater fish generate a static electric field around themselves and sense intruders by slight perturbations induced in the field; dogs, sharks, and cicadas detect sounds wholly inaudible to humans; ordinary scorpions have micro--seismometers on their legs so they can detect in darkness the footsteps of a small insect a meter away; water scorpions sense their depth by measuring the hydrostatic pressure; a nubile female silkworm moth releases ten billionths of a gram of sex attractant per second, and draws to her every male for miles around; dolphins, whales, and bats use a kind of sonar for precision echo-location.
The direction, range, and amplitude of sounds reflected by to echo-locating bats are systematically mapped onto adjacent areas of the bat brain. How does the bat perceive its echo-world? Carp and catfish have taste buds distributed over most of their bodies, as well as in their mouths; the nerves from all these sensors converge on massive sensory processing lobes in the brain, lobes unknown in other animals. how does a catfish view the world? What does it feel like to be inside its brain? There are reported cases in which a dog wags its tail and greets with joy a man it has never met before; he turns out to be the ~ Carl Sagan

He no longer saw the face of his friend Siddhartha, instead he saw other faces, many, a long sequence, a flowing river of faces, of hundreds, of thousands, which all came and disappeared, and yet all seemed to be there simultaneously, which all constantly changed and renewed themselves, and which were still all Siddhartha. He saw the face of a fish, a carp, with an infinitely painfully opened mouth, the face of a dying fish, with fading eyes - he saw the face of a new-born child, red and full of wrinkles, distorted from crying - he saw the face of a murderer, he saw him plunging a knife into the body of another person - he saw, in the same second, this criminal in bondage, kneeling and his head being chopped off by the executioner with one blow of his sword - he saw the bodies of men and women, naked in positions and cramps of frenzied love - he saw corpses stretched out, motionless, cold, void - he saw the heads of animals, of boars, of crocodiles, of elephants, of bulls, of birds - he saw gods, saw Krishna, saw Agni - he saw all of these figures and faces in a thousand relationships with one another, each one helping the other, loving it, hating it, destroying it, giving re-birth to it, each one was a will to die, a passionately painful confession of transitoriness, and yet none of them died, each one only transformed, was always re-born, received evermore a new face, without any time having passed between the one and the other face - and all of these figures and faces res ~ Hermann Hesse

We inculcate in our children the sensibilities of raccoons, a fascination with shiny objects and an appetite for garbage, and then carp about 'the texting generation' as if thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds who couldn't boil an egg are capable of creating a culture. They grow on what we feed them. It has never been otherwise. The only thing that changes is the food. ~ Garret Keizer

Where lies the power, there let the blame lie too.
Nay, power is relative; you cannot fright
The coming pest with border fortresses,
Or catch your carp with subtle argument.
All force is twain in one: cause is not cause
Unless effect be there; and action's self
Must needs contain a passive. So command
Exists but with obedience. ~ George Eliot

I often think that we are like the carp swimming contentedly in that pond. We live out our lives in our own "pond," confident that our universe consists of only the familiar and the visible. We smugly refuse to admit that parallel universes or dimensions can exist next to ours, just beyond our grasp. If our scientists invent concepts like forces, it is only because they cannot visualize the invisible vibrations that fill the empty space around us. Some scientists sneer at the mention of higher dimensions because they cannot be conveniently measured in the laboratory. ~ Michio Kaku

That's the real distinction between people: not between those who have secrets and those who don't, but between those who want to know everything and those who don't. This search is a sign of love, I maintain.
It's similar with books. Not quite the same, of course (it never is); but similar. If you quite enjoy a writer's work, if you turn the page approvingly yet
don't mind being interrupted, then you tend to like that author unthinkingly. Good chap, you assume. Sound fellow. They say he strangled an entire pack of Wolf Cubs and fed their bodies to a school of carp? Oh no, I'm sure he didn't; sound fellow, good chap. But if you love a writer, if you depend upon the drip-feed of his intelligence, if you want to pursue him and find him -- despite edicts to the contrary -- then it's impossible to know too much. You seek the vice as well. A pack of Wolf Cubs, eh? Was that twenty-seven or twenty-eight? And did he have their little scarves sewn up into a patchwork quilt? And is it true that as he ascended the scaffold he quoted from the Book of Jonah? And that he bequeathed his carp pond to the local Boy Scouts?
But here's the difference. With a lover, a wife, when you find the worst -- be it infidelity or lack of love, madness or the suicidal spark -- you are almost relieved. Life is as I thought it was; shall we now celebrate this disappointment? With a writer you love, the instinct is to defend. This is what I meant earlier: perhaps love for a writer is the purest ~ Julian Barnes

At one o'clock, the ever-logical Right-Eye Grand Steward woke up to discover that during his sleep his left-eyed counterpart had executed three of his advisors for treason, ordered the creation of a new carp pool and banned limericks. Worse still, no progress had been made in tracking down the Kleptomancer, and of the two people believed to be his accomplices, both had been released from prison and one had been appointed food taster. Right-Eye was not amused. He had known for centuries that he could trust nobody but himself. Now he was seriously starting to wonder about himself. ~ Frances Hardinge

See you now your bait of falsehood take this carp of truth; and thus do we of wisdom and of reach, with windlasses and with assays of bias, by indirections find directions out. ~ William Shakespeare

Why can't people get along without criticizing one another?" Urashima shakes
his head as he ponders this rudimentary question. "Never have the bush clover
blooming on the beach, nor the little crabs who skitter o'er the sand, nor the wild
geese resting their wings in yonder cove found fault with me. Would that human
beings too were thus! Each individual has his own way of living. Can we not learn
to respect one another's chosen way? One makes every effort to live in a dignified
and proper manner, without harming anyone else, yet people will carp and cavil
and try to tear one down. It's most vexing. ~ Osamu Dazai

It is easy to carp at colleges, and the college, if he will wait for it, will have its own turn. Genius exists there also, but will not answer a call of a committee of the House of Commons. It is rare, precious, eccentric, and darkling. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sent to the Monk"

Night falls
and the empty intimacy of the whole world
fills my heart to frothing.
The past has trudged to this one spot
and falls into the stream,
its flashlight in its mouth.
Ancient tears beneath the surface
rise and scatter like carp,
while an ivory hairpin floats away
like a loose tooth going back in time.

Columbia Poetry Review. Spring 2014 ~ Mary Ruefle

He suspected the Archdeacon of not having read them; he was in painful doubt as to what was really thought of them by the leading minds of Brasenose, and bitterly convinced that his old acquaintance Carp had been the writer of that depreciatory recension which was kept locked in a small drawer of Mr. Casaubon's desk, and also in a dark closet of his verbal memory. These were heavy impressions to struggle against, and brought that melancholy embitterment which is the consequence of all excessive claim: even his religious faith wavered with his wavering trust in his own authorship, and the consolations of the Christian hope in immortality seemed to lean on the immortality of the still unwritten Key to all Mythologies. For ~ George Eliot

When the same qualities which we admire in ourselves are seen in others, even though they be superior, maliciously lower and carp at them. ~ John Calvin

Human ambitions are like Japanese carp; they grow proportional to the size of their environment. Our achievements grow according to the size of our dreams and the degree to which we are in touch with our mission. ~ Keith Ferrazzi

He that can carp in the most eloquent or acute manner at the weakness of the human mind is held by his fellows as almost divine. ~ Baruch Spinoza

The true mission of feminism today is not to carp about the woes of affluent Western career women but to turn the spotlight on life-and-death issues affecting women in the Third World, particularly in rural areas where they have little protection against exploitation and injustice. ~ Camille Paglia

Howʹd you get here?" I asked.
She winked. "Youʹre not the only ones who can steal cars. Or, in my case, get people to 'willinglyʹ lend them. ~ Richelle Mead

Falling asleep is such a strange feeling. It's like a carp or an eel is tugging on a fishing line, or something heavy like a lead weight is pulling on the line that I'm holding with my head, and as I doze off to sleep, the line slackens up a bit. When that happens, it startles me back to awareness. Then it pulls me again. I doze off to sleep. The line loosens a bit again. This goes on three or four times, and then, with the first really big tug, this time it lasts until morning. ~ Osamu Dazai

Modern, not bottom-dwelling literature like a carp. ~ Joe Wright

The wild carp is an icon that forges a living connection between the past and the present. ~ Fennel Hudson

He took her near hand in his and raised it to his lips as he had once before. This time, he kissed it lightly, looking at her as he did, his expression unusually solemn. "Aye, sure, we'll go in," he said. "Just as soon as you look me in the eyes and tell me you're doing this willingly and not just because you said you would."
She looked him right in the eye then and said, "You first."

Ian laughed as much at the look of determination on Lina's face as at the challenge she had flung at him.
When she continued to watch him, he sobered. He was still holding her hand, so he gave it a warm squeeze and said, "I'm more willing with every minute that passes, lass. I believe that we will suit each other well."
"This may be the most reckless thing you have done, sir."
"It may be, aye. But you are doing it with me, so I'll wager that you won't carp and correct me at every turn as some wives try to do."
"I would not do that in any event," she said, peering into his face in that way she had that made him feel as if she would see right through him to his core. "I wonder if my opinions matter to you, though. I'm unlikely to change my feelings about many things that you do. Nor will I agree with you in all that you say."
"Then, likely we'll fratch from time to time," he said. "Would it help if I were to promise that I'll always listen?"
"It might," she said doubtfully. "It would help more if you did always listen."
He choked on another bubble ~ Amanda Scott

I was raised never to carp about things and never to moan, because in vaudeville, which is my background, you just got on with it through all kinds of adversities. ~ Julie Andrews

Believe in Lord Arthur. Believe in your Carp. We shall prevail. ~ Garth Nix

Like That"

Love me like a wrong turn on a bad road late at night, with no
moon and no town anywhere
and a large hungry animal moving heavily through the brush in
the ditch.
Love me with a blindfold over your eyes and the sound of rusty
water
blurting from the faucet in the kitchen, leaking down through
the floorboards to hot cement. Do it without asking,
without wondering or thinking anything, while the machinery's
shut down and the watchman's slumped asleep before his small TV
showing the empty garage, the deserted hallways, while the thieves
slice through
the fence with steel clippers. Love me when you can't find
a decent restaurant open anywhere, when you're alone in a glaring
diner
with two nuns arguing in the back booth, when your eggs are
greasy
and your hash browns underdone. Snick the buttons off the front
of my dress
and toss them one by one into the pond where carp lurk just
beneath the surface,
their cold fins waving. Love me on the hood of a truck no one's
driven
in years, sunk to its fenders in weeds and dead sunflowers;
and in the lilies, your mouth on my white throat, while turtles
drag
their bellies through slick mud, through the footprints of coots and
ducks.
Do it when no one's looking, when the riots begin and the planes
open up,
when the bus leaps the curb and the driver hits the brakes and the
Kim Addonizio

There are a couple of carp fishing books I've been reading. I'm very interested in that line of books, because I think they write very well, carp anglers, about the general environment. ~ Tom Felton

Frying gives cooks numerous ways of concealing what appeared the day before and in a pinch facilitates sudden demands, for it takes little more time to fry a four-pound carp than to boil an egg. ~ Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Smoked carp tastes just as good as smoked salmon when you ain't got no smoked salmon. ~ Patrick F. McManus

I have known a very good, fisher angle diligently four or six hours for a river carp, and not have a bite. ~ Izaak Walton

Are you actually laughing at me? Seriously?" Janie rubs her hair with a towel. "I almost died out there. Plus my brain is now infested with plankton and carp shit. You'd better watch it, or I'll blow a snot rocket at you."
"I'm ... eww. That's disgusting." Cabe laughs. "But seriously, you really should have seen yourself. Right, Megan? I wish I had a video camera. ~ Lisa McMann

However many reproductions I might supply, illustrations taken out of the apparatus of the individual bound book can never convey the bookishness of a book, the pace and scale and satisfaction of it, no more than a fish scale can substitute for a real, live unblinking carp, or a slice of honey-glazed ham can the suggest the respectable professional pig. ~ Gregory MacGuire

It is too facile to say that the way to follow Tao is to simply go along with the flow of life. Sometimes, like the carp, we must know when to go it alone. ~ Ming-Dao Deng

Of course a carp is just a carp, waiting to become either your pet, or a gefilte fish. But am I wrong to also see this body lying in a pool of blood, being fibbed about in plain sight, as a metaphor for all the corpses and blood never discussed? ~ Leela Corman

The river was the Hudson. There were carp in there and we saw them. They were as big as atomic submarines. We saw waterfalls, too, streams jumping off cliffs into the valley of the Delaware. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

You didn't happen to see your future mother-in-law at that meeting today, did you?" May as well milk the effort. "Yes, the hormonal carp was present." "Marshall!" "She blew me a new one, as you would say.""She ripped you a new one," I correct. "The word blow has an entirely different meaning. I suggest you remove it from your lexicon. ~ Addison Webster Moore

They look like to carp going after the same piece of corn. ~ Jesse Ventura

Is it a lack of faith to be thinking that we're all going to be slain or captured and sunk into the Hot Lake?" asked one of the four chosen archers.
"Yes," snapped the Carp. ~ Garth Nix

What can you guarentee, O Nostradamus of Hayward?" I carp. ~ Suzanne Finnamore

Technically speaking, the pond should be full of carp, but Hiro is American enough to think of carp as inedible dinosaurs that sit on the bottom and eat sewage. ~ Neal Stephenson

It strikes me that although we occasionally carp about Having To Suffer, and moan about never producing real Art, and become despondent or try too hard to compensate, we are indulging in our usual trick of synthesizing something to worry about, and should really be thanking ourselves that we live the life we do. We may think ourselves parasites, complain about Mind-generated tales, and long for 'genuine' feelings, 'real' emotion, but we are missing the point, and indeed making a work of art ourselves in imagining such an uncomplicated existence is even possible. We have the best of it. ~ Iain M. Banks

I used to have some fish, some nice little carp, but they got too big for the tank. I don't have any pets now. ~ Tom Felton