Goldfish Quotes

Don't look at me for this. As stated I lack the necessary female equipment for wet nursery. And I once killed a cactus and Bubba's goldfish watching over them. No offense, I don't want to kill Malphas or find a toilet big enough to flush him. Come to think of it, I don't recall him eating anything around me. Ever. Last time he went down, he told me he wanted blood to heal, and I only do that for the Red Cross. Nick ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

F*ck a duck and sh*t on a goldfish cracker! ~ R.D. Cole

There were hints of sunrise on the rim of the sky, yet it was still dark, and the traces of morning color were like goldfish swimming in ink. ~ Truman Capote

Very few of us have any idea whatsoever of what life is like living in a goldfish bowl, except, of course, for those of us who are goldfish. ~ Graham Taylor

I'm wondering how long I have to deal with this bullshit before I can brief my troops. Oh, and I gotta feed my goldfish. Let's get this straight, Blondie - "
"Blondie?"
"That's an insult, not a pet name. ~ Rie Warren

Be an electric eel in a goldfish pond! ~ S.A.R.K.

Japanese goldfish,
With your gossamer tail,
You are the loveliest creature
I have ever seen."
"Japanese kitten,
Put your tongue back in where it belongs
And go away.
I know exactly what you are thinking. ~ Paul Gallico

The ego of a god, the wit of a goldfish. ~ Shah Wharton

If you have any interests you can gain a wider audience for those interests while the goldfish bowl is yours! ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

So I went in to a pet shop. I said, "Can I buy a goldfish?" The guy said, "Do you want an aquarium?" I said, "I don't care what star sign it is." ~ Tim Vine

If I ask for a goldfish, he spits a glob of phlegm
into a jar of water. ~ Eduardo C. Corral

Reera did not keep them in misery more than a few seconds, for she touched each one with her right hand and instantly the fishes were transformed into three tall and slender young women, with fine, intelligent faces and clothed in handsome, clinging gowns. The one who had been a goldfish had beautiful golden hair and blue eyes and was exceedingly fair of skin; the one who had been a bronzefish had dark brown hair and clear gray eyes and her complexion matched these lovely features. The one who had been a silverfish had snow-white hair of the finest texture and deep brown eyes. The hair contrasted exquisitely with her pink cheeks and ruby-red lips, nor did it make her look a day older than her two companions. ~ L. Frank Baum

I read that goldfish have a memory of five seconds. I envy them. My memory of Alex, my love for him, will last my lifetime. ~ Simone Elkeles

Luckily, he had the memory span of a particularly dim goldfish, so with any luck he'd have forgotten all about the comment by the time they'd completed their mission. ~ Eoin Colfer

Tony Fernandes is in that goldfish bowl and he's swimming against the tide. ~ Niall Quinn

and there was a fish pond a large one full of the fattest goldfish you ever saw and they were tame. they came to the surface of the water and took pieces of bread from our hands. ~ Charles Bukowski

Nobody can remember when the sperm became large enough to see, but we agree on this: once that point was reached, every generation topped the last. They went from guppy to goldfish, and before long they could frighten a schnauzer, and not much later even Great Danes made way for them....
Sperm are ancient creatures, single-minded as coelacanths. They are drawn to the sun, the moon, and dots and disks of all descriptions, including periods, stop signs, and stars. They worship at nail heads, doorknobs and tennis balls. More than one life has been saved by a penny tossed in the air. ~ Shelley Jackson

Do you believe in God?" Her small hand grips onto my larger one. "Yeah, baby girl," I say, looking down and watching her smile at my answer. "Do you think God will let me see you again?" She continues to ask questions that keep breaking me. "I know he will," I say, believing it more than anything. My faith has now been shaken, but I can't lose hope that where she is going will be somewhere beautiful and amazing. "When I go to God, will I see Charlie the goldfish?" She yawns, almost drifting off as the hospital machines beep around us. I nearly smile at her question, but I can't, because at the end of the day we're talking about death, and the inevitable end that's fast approaching. "I don't know, baby girl," I tell her, wishing I had the right answers for her. ~ River Savage

The guy said, "If you'd taken that punch on the upper arm, you'd expect one hell of a bruise. Which is exactly what you got. Not on the outside. Not enough flesh. The bruise is on the inside. On your brain. With a twin across the hall, because your brain bounced from side to side in your skull like a goldfish in a test tube. What we call coup and contre-coup. ~ Lee Child

I could win you a goldfish."
"I don't think that's be fair to the goldfish," Gemma said. "I've had about a dozen of them, and they all seem to die within days of me getting them."
"Oh, yeah." Alex smiled crookedly. "I remember you making your dad bury them out in the backyard."
"They were my pets, and they deserved a proper burial."
"I better be careful around you." Alex stepped back from her cautiously, giving her a wide berth. "You're a goldfish mass murderer. I don't know what you're capable of."
"Stop!" Gemma laughed. "I didn't kill them on purpose! I was little. I think I overfed them. Out of love, though."
"That's even scarier," he teased. "Do you plan to kill me with kindness?"
"Maybe." She narrowed her eyes at him and tried to look menacing, making him laugh. ~ Amanda Hocking

Me giving my mom romantic advice is kind of like a goldfish giving a snail advice on how to fly.
-Will Grayson (pg. 66) ~ David Levithan

Then, before leaving, she handed the president a note from one of her young sons. The boy asked the president if he would be so kind, while he was staying there, as to please remember to feed his goldfish. When the president read that, he assured the Aga Khan and his wife, "Absolutely." He said he would be honored to do it and promised that he would do it himself. So one of the first things he did the next morning was feed the goldfish. And he did it every morning that they were there. ~ Joseph Petro

Goldfish are heavier than they look. ~ Frances Watts

Sometimes wisdom came from strange places, even from giant teenaged goldfish. ~ Rick Riordan

In the courtyard, jasmine sugared the air, great white sprays tumbling from the top of a wooden arbor at the side of the lawn. Huge goldfish swam slowly near the surface of the pool, listing their plump bodies backwards and forwards to court the afternoon sun. It was heavenly, but I didn't stick around; a distant band of trees was calling to me and I wove my way towards it, through the meadow dusted with buttercups, self-sown amid the long grass. Although it wasn't quite summer, the day was warm, the air dry, and by the time I reached the trees my hairline was laced with perspiration.
I spread the rug in a patch of dappled light and kicked off my shoes. Somewhere nearby a shallow brook chattered over stones and butterflies sailed the breeze. The blanket smelled reassuringly of laundry flakes and squashed leaves, and when I sat down the tall meadow grasses enclosed me so I felt utterly alone. ~ Kate Morton

The average human attention span was 12 seconds in 2000 and 8 seconds in 2013. A drop of 33%. The scary part is that the attention span of a goldfish was 9 seconds, almost 13% more than us humans. That's why it's getting tougher by the day to get people to turn the page. Maybe we writers ought to try writing for goldfish! ~ Ashwin Sanghi

Nothing seems true today except the death of the goldfish who used to make love at ninety kilometers an hour in the pool. The maid has given him a Christian burial. To the worms! To the worms! ~ Anais Nin

And the moral of that is "Once a goldfish, forever a goldfish. ~ Marissa Meyer

If beer got any lighter you could raise goldfish in it. ~ Jerry Adler

Everything in the universe is everything else. A man is a killer is a saint is a monkey is a cockroach is a goldfish is a whale, and the Devil is just the angel who asked for More. ~ Craig Clevenger

The Ancient Greeks? If they had steam engines, why didn't they have trains?'
. . .
'They were philosophers; they put two and two together and got a goldfish.'
(p. 76) ~ Natasha Pulley

Goldfish are flowers ... flowers that move. ~ Han Suyin

Just so you know,' I explained, remembering my own earlier arrogance, 'if you've ever owned a cat and therefore think you know how to handle a puma, you don't. It would be like playing with sharks because you once owned a goldfish. ~ Peter Allison

Shit, this woman's scary. I'm glad my manager's the short one with the wispy hair and the shaking hands. Milo knows how to get stuff done, but he's about as terrifying as a goldfish. ~ C.M. Stunich

[Adapted and condensed Valedictorian speech:]

I'm going to ask that you seriously consider modeling your life, not in the manner of the Dalai Lama or Jesus - though I'm sure they're helpful - but something a bit more hands-on, Carassius auratus auratus, commonly known as the domestic goldfish. People make fun of the goldfish. People don't think twice about swallowing it. Jonas Ornata III, Princeton class of '42, appears in the Guinness Book of World Records for swallowing the greatest number of goldfish in a fifteen-minute interval, a cruel total of thirty-nine. In his defense, though, I don't think Jonas understood the glory of the goldfish, that they have magnificent lessons to teach us. If you live like a goldfish, you can survive the harshest, most thwarting of circumstances. You can live through hardships that make your cohorts - the guppy, the neon tetra - go belly-up at the first sign of trouble. There was an infamous incident described in a journal published by the Goldfish Society of America - a sadistic five-year-old girl threw hers to the carpet, stepped on it, not once but twice - luckily she'd done it on a shag carpet and thus her heel didn't quite come down fully on the fish. After thirty harrowing seconds she tossed it back into its tank. It went on to live another forty-seven years. They can live in ice-covered ponds in the dead of winter. Bowls that haven't seen soap in a year. And they don't die from neglect, not immediately. They hold on for thre ~ Marisha Pessl

A loach can't emulate a goldfish. Because of my looks, the public support rating for us won't rise. ~ Yoshihiko Noda

What's Your Purple Goldfish? busts a myth and reveals a simple truth about customer service. Stan uncovers the recipe for creating signature added value that increases customer satisfaction and drives positive word of mouth. ~ Barry Moltz

It was nice to meet you," I say loudly in a more formal tone than I used when we were alone. And then I surprise myself, lean closer to him and whisper something I know I shouldn't.
"You know, my family's assigned to the next supply run into town this Saturday." I can't quite look at him afterward. What am I doing?
He shoots me a sidelong glance and a slow smile spreads across his face, lighting up his gray-green eyes. "Maybe we'll run into each other. Could happen . . . especially if I have a general idea of where you're going to be."
My breath quickens. I can feel his smile becoming contagious and I return it with one of my own. "We'll probably be at Walmart for most of the morning."
"I happen to love that store. Where else can you get a haircut, goldfish, and camping gear all at the same time?"
He winks at me and I have to clamp my mouth shut to keep from laughing. I've never felt so reckless. It's terrifying, but exhilarating too. ~ Amy Christine Parker

I can't moan about any of it. I had a great time in the goldfish bowl. ~ Robert Plant

There is a joke about a little girl who is filling in a hole in her garden when a neighbor looks over the fence. He politely asks, "Hi! What are you up to?" "My goldfish died," replies the girl tearfully, "and I've just buried him." The neighbor asks, "Isn't that an awfully big hole for a goldfish?" The little girl tamps down the soil and replies, "That's because he's inside your stupid cat. ~ Steven Pinker

Would it please you if I said your eyes were twin goldfish bowls filled to the brim with the clearest green water and that when the fish swim to the top, as they are doing now, you are devilishly charming? ~ Margaret Mitchell

My goldfish is swimming around all excited inside the fishbowl on the fridge so I reach up and drop a Valium in its water. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Here is a fish swimming around comfortably and (he thinks) unobtrusively, flicking here and there amongst the kelp and the plankton. Draw away for the long view and there's the kicker: It's a goldfish bowl. ~ Stephen King

We have a puppy named Lucy ... two cats ... goldfish ... and Louis, our lop earred rabbit. ~ Julia Barr

People aim for the stars, and they end up like goldfish in a bowl. I wonder if it wouldn't be simpler just to teach children right from the start that life is absurd. ~ Muriel Barbery

Shelby trailed off when she spotted the goldfish swimming in circles inside the Waterford. "Well, he's come up in the world," she said with a jerky laugh. "I don't think he appreciates it. ~ Nora Roberts

In the next shot the cameras zoomed to the fiancee who noticed the lights in the Czarina's room go out and the camera then turned to the pond where two goldfish were making love. ~ Pola Negri

Performers are the neediest people in the world. Unless you've been in that goldfish bowl - nobody can judge unless they've worn those shoes. ~ Olivia Hussey

To shoot up a district of women, children, prams and goldfish otherwise, to run them through with swords much as one might like to, would not look good, would look grave, sexist, unbalanced, not only in the glare of the critical side of the home media, but also in the eyes of the international media ~ Anna Burns

Fly with those who lift you up and thrust you forward

A pilot friend of mine told me there are four main principles to master when flying airplanes: lift, thrust, weight, and drag. You have to take all these into account to make sure the plane will fly.
It struck me that these same principles apply to specific types of people. There are some who lift you, brighten your day, cheer you up, and make you feel better about yourself. You meet them and you have a spring in your step. They're a lift. Then there are people who thrust you. They inspire you, motivate you, challenge you to move forward and pursue your dreams. The third group are weights. They pull you down, dump their problems on you, so that you leave feeling heavier, negative, discouraged, and worse than you did before.
Finally, there are those who are a drag. They've always got a sad song. The dishwasher broke. The goldfish died. They didn't get invited to a party. They're stuck in a pit. They expect you to cheer them up, fix their problems, and carry their loads.
We all encounter people from each of these four groups. You have to make sure you're spending the majority of your time with lifters and thrusters. If you're only hanging out with weights and drags, it will keep you from becoming everything you were created to be. ~ Joel Osteen

And I am overwhelmed now by the awfulness of over-simplification. For now I realize that not only have I been guilty of it through this long and burning day but also through most of my yet young life and it is only now that I am doubly its victim that I begin to vaguely understand. For I had somehow thought that 'going away' was but a physical thing. And that it had only to do with movement and with labels like the silly 'Vancouver' that I had glibly rolled from off my tongue; or with the crossing of bodies of water or with the boundaries of borders. And because my father told me I was 'free' I had foolishly felt that it was really so. Just like that. And I realize now that the older people of my past are more complicated than perhaps I had ever thought. And that there are distinctions between my sentimental, romantic grandfather and his love for coal, and my stern and practical grandmother her hatred of it; and my quietly strong but passive mother and the souring extremes of my father's passionate violence and the quiet power of his love. They are all so different. Perhaps it is possible I think now to be both and yet to see only one. For the man in whose glassed-in car I now sit sees only similarity. For him the people of this multi-scarred little town are reduced to but a few phrases and the act of sexual intercourse. They are only so many identical goldfish leading identical, incomprehensible lives within the glass prison of their bowl. And the people on the street view m ~ Alistair MacLeod

I laughed, harder than I'd laughed in a long time. "You have got to be kidding," I said, watching the hope vanish from his face. "I'm the one you ought to be scared of. I killed my fucking goldfish. ~ Nicole Castle

I lean on my friends for support. It's better than leaning on a crutch, because your friends won't accuse you of chugging down all the water out of the goldfish bowl. My friends know I have a drinking problem. ~ Jarod Kintz

One can get very fond of the people one meets in bars. The trouble is they then appear sort of different in the daylight and you realize that taking them with you is rather like taking a goldfish for a walk: not entirely correct, and surprising for the next people you run into. ~ Alice Thomas Ellis

The dream state just before wakening when it seems perfectly logical for the goldfish not to like peeling its own potatoes on the bus. ~ Kate Griffin

Oh my god lady, you can't eat the goldfish!"
Scowling I turn to the intruder of my happy moment.
A young human man is standing there staring at me indignantly, wearing some sort of pants that look like pantyhose. All his business is right there…just…there. The hooded sweatshirt he is wearing does nothing to hide it.
Why wear the sweatshirt if he's going to wear pantyhose?
"Why not? Fish tastes good."
"Lady, they're for looking at, not eating. See the sign?" Oh, shit. He points at a warning sign that's a few feet from me. In big red letters, "No fishing. Fish are not meant for consumption".
Woops.
Well, since I already broke the law… ~ Zoe Parker

Modern Americans are so exposed, peered at, inquired about, and spied upon as to be increasingly without privacy
members of a ;naked society and denizens of a goldfish bowl. ~ Edward V. Long

I have a pet lizard named Puff, five goldfish - named Pinky, Brain, Jowels, Pearl and Sandy, an oscar fish named Chef, two pacus, an albino African frog named Whitey, a bonsai tree, four Venus flytraps, a fruit fly farm and sea monkeys. ~ Chris Pratt

I've watched goldfish make babies, and ants execute earwigs. I've seen a fly deliver live young while having its head eaten by a mantis. And I had a golden retriever behave like one. ~ N.D. Wilson

Like simple minded goldfish, we often believe the boundaries of our bowl to be the entire ocean. ~ Laren Grey Umphlett

This work is the link between my Dear Natalie piece and my upcoming Agatha work. It bridges that lapse in time and shows how my thinking has changed. It shows me telling a story through the surreal and trying to use thought fragments alone to show a tortured existence. This piece was written after the Dear Natalies and before the Agatha mystery, but it is meant to be read after you've already read both.
This book is a bridge between two books, which would make it a bridge between two bridges. That's strange, but I've seen stranger. Like the time I woke up in a fish tank, having morphed into a goldfish during my sleep. I still fear the sound of a flushing toilet, and since then I refuse to let myself fall asleep while wearing flippers.
This book is 3,088 words of pure nonsense, strung together like pearls hurled at bacon. Yum! ~ Jarod Kintz

Dude." Percy sent his thoughts through the water, the way he spoke to other sea creatures. "A goldfish?"
Frank's voice came back to him: "I freaked. We were talking about goldfish, so it was on my mind. Sue me. ~ Rick Riordan

The distance a goldfish swims is not controlled by the bowl. ~ Les Coleman

He had become the writers' equivalent of a goldfish after years of writing 500 word articles and wondered whether mind-expanding drugs would help him hold a full-length plot in his head, because he was having problems with continuity. ~ Owen Jones

We don't even have a goldfish." "You've got to think toward the future." My dad smiled at me. "Maybe one day you'll move out and your mom and I will get a golden retriever to replace you. ~ Robin Benway

I think there's something great and generic about goldfish. They're everybody's first pet. ~ Paul Rudd

I was the goldfish that leapt out of the bowl. ~ Paula Fox

Hate Poem

I hate you truly. Truly I do.
Everything about me hates everything about you.
The flick of my wrist hates you.
The way I hold my pencil hates you.
The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped
in the jaws of a moray eel hates you.
Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you.

Look out! Fore! I hate you.

The blue-green jewel of sock lint I'm digging
from under by third toenail, left foot, hates you.
The history of this keychain hates you.
My sigh in the background as you explain relational databases
hates you.
The goldfish of my genius hates you.
My aorta hates you. Also my ancestors.

A closed window is both a closed window and an obvious
symbol of how I hate you.

My voice curt as a hairshirt: hate.
My hesitation when you invite me for a drive: hate.
My pleasant "good morning": hate.
You know how when I'm sleepy I nuzzle my head
under your arm? Hate.
The whites of my target-eyes articulate hate. My wit
practices it.
My breasts relaxing in their holster from morning
to night hate you.
Layers of hate, a parfait.
Hours after our latest row, brandishing the sharp glee of hate,
I dissect you cell by cell, so that I might hate each one
individually and at leisure.
My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validity
of my hate, which can never have enough of you,
Julie Sheehan

These are the things I learned (in Kindergarten):

1. Share everything.
2. Play fair.
3. Don't hit people.
4. Put things back where you found them.
5. CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS.
6. Don't take things that aren't yours.
7. Say you're SORRY when you HURT somebody.
8. Wash your hands before you eat.
9. Flush.
10. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
11. Live a balanced life - learn some and drink some and draw some and paint some and sing and dance and play and work everyday some.
12. Take a nap every afternoon.
13. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
14. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
15. Goldfish and hamster and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
16. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK. ~ Robert Fulghum

We all live in a televised goldfish bowl. ~ Kingman Brewster, Jr.

A few years ago, the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved bowls ... saying that it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl with curved sides because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view of reality. But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of reality? ~ Stephen Hawking

Are we goldfish in a bowl
doomed eternally
to swim around our little world and think it is the sea?
and that we are the masters? ~ Bernie Morris

Love reminds me of when I was six and had a pet goldfish named "Silverbird" that I carried around the house, petting it like a cat. Needless to say it died. So I ate it. ~ Jarod Kintz

It was in Bethlehem, actually, that Yonatan found his Arab, a handsome man who used his first wish for peace. His name was Munir; he was fat with a big white mustache. Superphotogenic. It was moving, the way he said it. Yoni knew even as he was filming that this guy would be his promo for sure.
Either him or that Russian. The one with the faded tattoos that Yoni had met in Jaffa. The one that looked straight into the camera and said, if he ever found a talking goldfish, he wouldn't ask of it a single thing. He'd just stick it on a shelf in a big glass jar and talk to him all day, it didn't matter about what. Maybe sports, maybe politics, whatever a goldfish was interested in chatting about.
Anything, the Russian said, not to be alone. ~ Etgar Keret

Yeah, that sure was Mace Llewellyn staring at her from the other side of her desk. Just staring. Like he used to. Like he knew where she'd buried the bodies of all her goldfish after their unfortunate "accidents" or what she did with her sisters' toothbrushes on more than one occasion. ~ Shelly Laurenston

I was a goldfish without a castle to hide in. ~ Michelle Hodkin

without purpose your sharp perceptions and subtle noticings are just an excuse to swim around inside your own head like a goldfish whilst the real world rages on about you. You're all vision and no purpose, in a world that demands we constantly ready ourselves not to bark, but to bite. ~ Troy Blackford

Suddenly Tink was right in front of my face, causing me to jerk back. "I know you're mad at me and you probably want to slice and dice me up and wear my skin as a new bracelet."
I glanced around. "Um. That's not exactly what I want to do."
Hope widened his eyes.
"But I kind of want to flush you down a toilet," I amended.
He gasped. "I'd get stuck! And these pipes are old. How would you even do that? I'm not a goldfish."
I rolled my eyes. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

I have a weakness for Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers and was delighted to find out that 55 goldfish were only 150 calories - not bad! One time, Liz brought something I hadn't tried before: Flavor Blasted Goldfish. We passed around the bag and discussed whether it was better than the original. Some of my staff thought yes, which was incorrect. ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton

I'm living in a world of goldfish. ~ Mycroft Holmes

I couldn't be a royal. It's like living in a supersonic goldfish bowl. ~ Ozzy Osbourne

Sometimes, just for fun, I type some random, silly word in front of the word porn and google it. Just to see if it exists. Because that means people out there are getting off on it. So I googled Nazi porn. Yupp. It exists. Then I googled goldfish porn. Yupp. Found it. Someone out there finds sex with goldfish arousing. Fart porn. Yes, that's a thing too, and it brings someone somewhere great pleasure. Stormtrooper porn. Yes, the force is strong with that one. And it's not even a Saturday Night Live parody. It's literally hardcore porn, featuring men dressed in Stormtrooper outfits. With surprisingly high production values. ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

I grew up around animals [seven horses, dogs and now a pet goldfish named Leila] and I'm rebelling against them not having a natural existence. ~ Isabel Lucas

And then, unbidden, seemingly out of nowhere, a thought or image arrives. Some will float into your head like goldfish, lovely, bright, orange, and weightless, and you follow them like a child at an aquarium that was thought to be without fish. Others will step of the shadows like Boo Radley and make you catch your breath or take a step backward. They're often so rich, these unbidden thoughts, and so clear that they feel indelible. But I say write them all down anyway. ~ Anne Lamott

I'm like a staircase, she was like an elevator, and our relationship never escalated above friendship. I'd like to think we'll one day be a couple, but I'm not going to wear a fishbowl on my head and dream about it. That wouldn't be fair to me, her, or the goldfish I'd be displacing. ~ Jarod Kintz

A writer is dreamed and transfigured into being by spells, wishes, goldfish, silhouettes of trees, boxes of fairy tales dropped in the mud, uncles' and cousins' books, tablets and capsules and powders ... and then one day you find yourself leaning here, writing on that round glass table salvaged from the Park View Pharmacy
writing this, an impossibility, a summary of who you came to be where you are now, and where, God knows, is that? ~ Cynthia Ozick

The outside of the building was covered with faded poster advertising what was sold, and by the eerie light of the half-moon, the Baudelaires could see that fresh limes, plastic knives, canned meat, white envelopes, mango-flavored candy, red wine, leather wallets, fashion magazines, goldfish bowls, sleeping bags, roasted figs, cardboard boxes, controversial vitamins, and many other things were available inside the store. Nowhere on the building, however, was there a poster advertising help, which is really what the Baudelaires needed. ~ Lemony Snicket

She's not dead. You didn't kill her, nor did the hunger birds, although they did their best to get to you through her. She's been given her ocean. One day, in its own time, the ocean will give her back.
I thought of corpses and of skeletons with pearls for eyes. I thought of mermaids with tails that flicked when they moved, like my goldfishes' tails had flicked before my goldfish had stopped moving, to lie, belly up, like Lettie, on the top of the water. I said, 'Will she be the same? ~ Neil Gaiman

When I was about ten years old, I gave my teacher an April Fool's sandwich, which had a dead goldfish in it. ~ Alan Alda

Goldfish have no memory, I guess their lives are much like mine. And the little plastic castle is a surprise everytime. ~ Ani DiFranco

We weigh ourselves down with so many obstacles we can't even buy a goldfish bowl. ~ Barbara Sher

But nothing I ever gave was good for you;
it was like white bread to goldfish.
they cram and cram, and it kills them,
and they drift in the pool, belly-up,
making stunned faces
and playing on our guilt
as if their own toxic gluttony
was not their own fault
there you are, still outside the window,
still with your hands out, still
pallid and fish-eyed, still acting
stupidly innocent and starved. ~ Margaret Atwood

Life isn't fair. Fair is somewhere you go to ride the dodgems and win a goldfish. (from Rush of Blood) ~ Mark Billingham

I have pets, but they're the really ordinary sort - yellow Labrador, tabby cat, white rabbit, a few goldfish - that kind of stuff. Nothing very ... extravagant or unusual or exotic, but I find, in terms of inspiration, Mother Nature is just it. ~ Graeme Base

I believe there is something of the divine mystery in everything that exists. We can see it sparkle in a sunflower or a poppy. We sense more of the unfathomable mystery in a butterfly that flutters from a twig
or in a goldfish swimming in a bowl. But we are closest to God in our own soul. Only there can we become one with the greatest mystery of life. In truth, at very rare moments we can experience that we ourselves are that divine mystery. ~ Jostein Gaarder

Few books I had read so directly and wholly addressed that fundamental fact of existence: all organisms, whether goldfish or grandchild, die. ~ Paul Kalanithi

Every parent who has ever said a few words over a goldfish in a toilet bowl
or felt the numbness of an unexpected diagnosis in a pediatrician's office will appreciate the heartfelt wisdom in It's Okay to Cry. Norm Wright tenderly and skillfully equips parents to help children cultivate a healthy response to life's many pains and sorrows. ~ Lori Borgman

Places to hunt
places to hide are
getting harder to find, and pet
canaries and goldfish too, did you notice
that? ~ Charles Bukowski

There is a natural hootchy-kootchy motion to a goldfish. ~ Walt Disney Company

No matter how lackluster its surroundings, within seconds, all was new again for a goldfish because it had figured out how to repair its sense of spectacle. There ~ Durga Chew-Bose