Trout Quotes

I fished upstream coming ever closer and closer to the narrow staircase of the canyon. Then I went up into it as if I were entering a department store. I caught three trout in the lost and found department. ~ Richard Brautigan

What are more delightful than one's emotions when approaching a trout stream for the initial cast? ~ Nash Buckingham

Despite all our toil and progress, the art of medicine still falls somewhere between trout casting and spook writing. ~ Ben Hecht

Near mint my ass! Bluebird45 is getting some seriously bad feedback."
"You bought this on eBay?" I flipped to a random page and started reading. "Man, you really can get anything on there. ~ Jenny Trout

There was a trout. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

The fish was a twelve-inch rainbow trout with a huge hump on its back. A hunchback trout. ~ Richard Brautigan

During my addled career as a trout fisherman I have gone on a lot of wild-goose chases, and I ruefully expect to go on a lot more before I hang up my waders ~ John D. Voelker

The late American golfing coach and writer, Harvey Penick, held that any who played golf was his friend – in the politer sense of Arcades ambo, I gather. … I myself hold with Honest Izaak that there is – and that I am a member of – a communion of, if not saints, at least anglers and very honest men, some now with God and others of us yet upon the quiet waters. … The man is a mere brute, and no true angler, whose sport is measured only in fish caught and boasted of. For what purpose do we impose on ourselves limits and conventions if not to make sport of a mere mechanical harvest of protein? The true angler can welcome even a low river and a dry year, and learn of it, and be the better for it, in mind and in spirit. So, No: the hatch is not all that it might be, for if it is warm enough and early with it, it is also in a time of drought; and, No: I don't get to the river as often as I should wish. But these things do not make this a poor year: they are an unlooked-for opportunity to delve yet deeper into the secrets of the river, and grow wise. … Rejoice, then, in all seasons, ye fishers. The world the river is; both you and I, And all mankind, are either fish or fry. We must view it with judicious looks, and get wisdom whilst we may. And to all honest anglers, then, I wish, as our master Izaak wished us long ago, 'a rainy evening to read this following Discourse; and that if he be an honest Angler, the east wind may never blow when he goes a-fishing. ~ G.M.W. Wemyss

For many, it's a once-in-a-lifetime, long dreamed-of and longed-saved-for trip. Pennies have been pinched and sacrifices made to make the vacation a reality. All Guests' wallets will be separated from a great deal of money, like trout expertly filleted, but it will be a curious;y painless experience, for all but a few, the trip will be transcendently and sublimely worth every sacrifice and penny. ~ Leslie Le Mon

I usually fish a Hornberg or a Muddler Minnow, a deer-haired streamer that comes in a variety of sizes and colors but replicates a sculpin minnow or a grasshopper. Even if a trout doesn't take the larger streamers, it can usually be counted on to come up and give a look, revealing its location. ~ Joseph Monninger

If you want to catch trout, don't fish in a herring barrel. ~ Ann Landers

The day should come when all of the forms of life ... will stand before the court - the pileated woodpecker as well as the coyote and bear, the lemmings as well as the trout in the streams. ~ William O. Douglas

It's circumstantial evidence, like finding a trout in the milk. ~ Henry David Thoreau

I sit in happy mediation on my rock, pondering, while my line dries again, upon the ways of trout and men. How like fish we are: ready, nay eager, to seize upon whatever new thing some wind of circumstance shakes down upon the river of time! And how we rue our haste, finding the gilded morsel to contain a hook. Even so, I think there is some virtue to eagerness, whether its object prove true or false. How utterly dull would be a wholly prudent man, or trout, or world! ~ Aldo Leopold

You must lose a fly to catch a trout. ~ George Herbert

The three of us ate a fine supper of grilled trout with sorrel cream sauce, and red potatoes out of Britney's old garden behind the ruins of the Watling place, and watercress sautéed in butter for hardly a moment with a dash of vinegar, and cream custard with wild blackberries for dessert. ~ James Howard Kunstler

Kilgore Trout was shadowing him, keen to know what Billy had suspected or seen. Most of Trout's novels, after all, dealt with time warps and extrasensory perception and other unexpected things. Trout believed in things like that, was greedy to have their existence proved. "You ever put a full-length mirror on the floor, and then have a dog stand on it?" Trout asked Billy. "No." "The dog will look down, and all of a sudden he'll realize there's nothing under him. He thinks he's standing on thin air. He'll jump a mile. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

There is a lot of amiable fantasy written about trout fishing, but the truth is that few men know much if anything about the habits of trout and little more about the manner of taking them. ~ John D. Voelker

Dogs choose us, not the other way around. ~ Nick Trout

Well, the gold fish in the bowl lay upside down bloating
Full in the sky and the plains were bleached white with skeletons
Various species grouped together according
To their past beliefs
The only way they ever all got together was
Not in love but shameful grief ~ Don Van Vliet

Mistakes are inevitable, but what is not, and what will set us apart, is our ability to learn from them ~ Nick Trout

The confirmed man of trout should resolve to get along with wood ticks. Any other procedure would fail because the wood tick is determined to get along with trout fishermen. ~ Gordon MacQuarrie

Can I have a glass of water?" Her voice was hoarse, probably from screaming. She'd always sounded like that after they'd-

He didn't just force the thought aside. He clubbed it unconscious, threw it into a crawl space and walled it up alive. ~ Jenny Trout

To me heaven would be a big bull ring with me holding two barrera seats and a trout stream outside that no one else was allowed to fish in and two lovely houses in the town; one where I would have my wife and children and be monogamous and love them truly and well and the other where I would have my nine beautiful mistresses on nine different floors. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

As she died, Mary was alone on the planet as were Dwayne Hoover or Kilgore Trout. She had never reproduced. There were no friends or relatives to watch her die. So she spoke her very last words on the planet to Cyprian Ukwende. She did not have enough breath left to make her vocal cords buzz. She could only move her lips noiselessly.
Here is all she had to say about death: 'Oh my, oh my.'
...
Like all Earthlings at the point of death, Mary Young sent faint reminders of herself to those who had known her. She released a small could of telepathic butterflies, and one of these brushed Dwayne Hoover, nine miles away.
Dwayne heard a tired voice from somewhere behind his head, even though no one was back there. It said this to Dayne: 'Oh my, oh my.
... ~ Kurt Vonnegut

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the rise of a trout to the tied fly, is the purest form of flattering nature with art. ~ R.E. Long

The Drunken Fisherman"

Wallowing in this bloody sty,
I cast for fish that pleased my eye
(Truly Jehovah's bow suspends
No pots of gold to weight its ends);
Only the blood-mouthed rainbow trout
Rose to my bait. They flopped about
My canvas creel until the moth
Corrupted its unstable cloth.

A calendar to tell the day;
A handkerchief to wave away
The gnats; a couch unstuffed with storm
Pouching a bottle in one arm;
A whiskey bottle full of worms;
And bedroom slacks: are these fit terms
To mete the worm whose molten rage
Boils in the belly of old age?

Once fishing was a rabbit's foot--
O wind blow cold, O wind blow hot,
Let suns stay in or suns step out:
Life danced a jig on the sperm-whale's spout--
The fisher's fluent and obscene
Catches kept his conscience clean.
Children, the raging memory drools
Over the glory of past pools.

Now the hot river, ebbing, hauls
Its bloody waters into holes;
A grain of sand inside my shoe
Mimics the moon that might undo
Man and Creation too; remorse,
Stinking, has puddled up its source;
Here tantrums thrash to a whale's rage.
This is the pot-hole of old age.

Is there no way to cast my hook
Out of this dynamited brook?
The Fisher's sons must cast about
When shallow waters peter out.
I will catch Christ with a greased worm,
And when ~ Robert Lowell

One of the worst parts about working in entertainment is that there's so much you're expected to have seen. Oh, you're a screenwriter? You've seen the new Batman, then, right? I'm watching this show on Amazon, right now, and oh my god, it's so good - but I'm sure you've already seen it. The reality is, I'm usually so busy on my own work, I rarely have time to see anything that isn't required for some kind of voting. ~ Jenny Trout

Fly-fishing for wild trout on quiet waters must be one of the toughest and craziest ways to catch fish ever invented by man, as well as among the most frustrating and humiliating. ~ John D. Voelker

When the cure for insecurity and meaningful conversation is to slap a cell phone against your ear, hide within your iPod, or tap out a cryptic instant message, is it any wonder that we find comfort and solace in hairy, furry, and scaly companions? ~ Nick Trout

Were you to read the British press today, you would learn that the British Empire never forgets its defeats. ~ Robert Trout

As a younger man, Trout would have sneered at the sign about brotherhood - posted on the rim of a bomb crater, as anyone could see. But his head no longer sheltered ideas of how things could be and should be on the planet, as opposed to how they really were. There was only one way for the Earth to be, he thought: the way it was. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Like almost all of Beefheart's recorded work, [Trout Mask Replica] was not even "ahead" of its time in 1969. Then and now, it stands outside time, trends, fads, hypes, the rise and fall of whole genres eclectic as walking Christmas trees, constituting a genre unto itself: truly, a musical Monolith if ever there was one. ~ Lester Bangs

Such avian silence is punctuated only by the occasional plunk of a trout sinking an ovipositioning daddy longlegs, and the hysterical cackle of a Mallard that finally gets last night's joke. ~ Bruce Beckham

Trout aren't naturally as selective as they've become in crowded tailwaters - they've been trained to be like that by too much fishing pressure. I've seen tailwater fish that are so hysterical they'll refuse naturals. You wonder how they get enough to eat. ~ John Gierach

My mother was addicted to being rich, to servants and unlimited charge accounts, to giving lavish dinner parties, to taking frequent first-class trips to Europe. So one might say she was tormented by withdrawal symptoms all through the Great Depression. She was acculturated! Acculturated persons are those who find that they are no longer treated as the sort of people they thought they were, because the outside world has changed. An economic misfortune or a new technology, or being conquered by another country or political faction, can do that to people quicker than you can say "Jack Robinson." As Trout wrote in his "An American Family Marooned on the Planet Pluto": "Nothing wrecks any kind of love more effectively than the discovery that your previously acceptable behavior has become ridiculous." He said in conversation at the 2001 clambake: "If I hadn't learned how to live without a culture and a society, acculturation would have broken my heart a thousand times." *** ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Walter looked about him lingeringly and lovingly. This spot had always been so dear to him. What fun they all had had here lang syne. Phantoms of memory seemed to pace the dappled paths and peep merrily through the swinging boughs–Jem and Jerry, bare-legged, sunburned schoolboys, fishing in the brook and frying trout over the old stone fireplace; Nan and Di and Faith, in their dimpled, fresh-eyed childish beauty; Una the sweet and shy, Carl, poring over ants and bugs, little slangy, sharp-tongued, good-hearted Mary Vance–the old Walter that had been himself lying on the grass reading poetry or wandering through palaces of fancy. They were all there around him–he could see them almost as plainly as he saw Rilla–as plainly as he had once seen the Pied Piper piping down the valley in a vanished twilight. And they said to him, those gay little ghosts of other days, "We were the children of yesterday, Walter–fight a good fight for the children of today and tomorrow. ~ L.M. Montgomery

We fear doing too little when we should do more. Then atone by doing too much, when perhaps we should do less. ~ Robert Trout

As Trout departed, he sent this telepathic message to the Creator of the Universe, serving as His eyes and ears and conscience: Am headed for Forty-second Street now. How much do you already know about Forty-second Street? ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Growing up, I was such a picky eater. I'm finally starting to expand. ~ Mike Trout

That man," she announced huffily, referring to their host, "can't put two words together without losing his meaning!" Obviously she'd expected better of the quality during the time she was allowed to mix with them.
"He's afraid of us, I think," Elizabeth replied, climbing out of bed. "Do you know the time? He desired me to accompany him fishing this morning at seven."
"Half past ten," Berta replied, opening drawers and turning toward Elizabeth for her decision as to which gown to wear. "He waited until a few minutes ago, then went of without you. He was carrying two poles. Said you could join him when you arose."
"In that case, I think I'll wear the pink muslin," she decided with a mischievous smile.
The Earl of Marchman could scarcely believe his eyes when he finally saw his intended making her way toward him. Decked out in a frothy pink gown with an equally frothy pink parasol and a delicate pink bonnet, she came tripping across the bank. Amazed at the vagaries of the female mind, he quickly turned his attention back to the grandfather trout he'd been trying to catch for five years. Ever so gently he jiggled his pole, trying to entice or else annoy the wily old fish into taking his fly. The giant fish swam around his hook as if he knew it might be a trick and then he suddenly charged it, nearly jerking the pole out of John's hands. The fish hurtled out of the water, breaking the surface in a tremendous, thrilling arch at the same moment John's intended b ~ Judith McNaught

Sometimes nature can take its course and shove it. Our commitment to protecting our cat or dog is life-long and sadly, sometimes, that includes protection from discomfort and pain, even if, in the vet's opinion, this means euthanasia. ~ Nick Trout

If this was one of those books, there would now be three pages of head-banging sex. The reality was that he pulled me close, whispered, 'Mfhbnnntx,' and I pulled his arm over me like a cover and muttered, 'Trout,' and that was pretty much it. ~ Jodi Taylor

Best of all he loved the fall
the leaves yellow on the cottonwoods
leaves floating on the trout streams
and above the hills the high blue windless skies…now he will be a part of them forever. ~ Ernest Hemingway

In order for a society to survive, it must generate a sufficient level of physical production both to meet its current needs, and to produce a surplus for upgrading its productive powers. ~ Robert Trout

I came from a race of fishers; trout streams gurgled about the roots of my family tree. ~ John Burroughs

There was a fine thing about that trout. I only wish I could have made a death mask of him. Not of his body though, but of his energy. I don't know if anyone would have understood his body. I put it in my creel. ~ Richard Brautigan

It's very expressive of myself. I just lump everything into a great heap which I have labelled "the past" and, having thus emptied this deep reservoir that was once myself, I am ready to continue.'
They sat together in the pleasant gloom of late afternoon, staring at each other through the remains of the party; the silver glasses, the silver tray, the traces of many perfumes; they sat together watching the twilight flow through the calm living room that they were leaving like the clear cold current of a trout stream. ~ Zelda Fitzgerald

The myth that John Locke was the philosopher behind the American Republic, is easily refuted by examining how Locke's philosophy steered Thomas Jefferson, for example. ~ Robert Trout

Nim unwrapped a loaf of fresh dilled rye bread and opened a crock of trout mousse. He slathered up a big slice and handed it to me. [ ... ] We had thinly sliced veal smothered in kumquat sauce, fresh spinach with pine nuts, and fat red beefsteak tomatoes (impossibly rare at this time of year) broiled and stuffed with lemon apple sauce. The wide, fan-shaped mushrooms were sauteed lightly and served as a side dish. The main course was followed by a salad of red and green baby lettuce with dandelion greens and toasted hazelnuts. ~ Katherine Neville

Wasn't loving him like loving the sun, so beautiful and warm, essential to light but deadly if you got too close? ~ Jenny Trout

Perhaps the greatest gift an animal has to offer is a permanent reminder of who we really are. ~ Nick Trout

Circumstantial evidence is occasionally very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau's example. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Like most science-fiction writers, Trout knew almost nothing about science, was bored stiff by technical details. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

So Rosewater told him. It was The Gospel from Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was about a visitor from outer space, shaped very much like a Tralfamadorian, by the way. The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes. *** The flaw in the Christ ~ Kurt Vonnegut

This Henry lived in Edinburgh, making him inaccessible and giving her something to do on the weekends - 'Oh, just flying up to Scotland, Henry's taking me fishing,' which is the kind of thing she imagined people doing in Scotland - she always thought of the Queen Mother, incongruous in mackintosh and waders, standing in the middle of a shallow brown river (somewhere on the outskirts of Brigadoon, no doubt) and casting a line for trout. ~ Kate Atkinson

It was about people whose mental diseases couldn't be treated because the causes of the diseases were all in the fourth dimension, and three-dimensional Earthling doctors couldn't see those causes at all, or even imagine them. One thing Trout said that Rosewater liked very much was that there really were vampires and werewolves and goblins and angels and so on, but that they were in the fourth dimension. So was William Blake, Rosewater's favorite poet, according to Trout. So were heaven and hell. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Game fish are too valuable to be caught only once. ~ Lee Wulff

They say you forget your troubles on a trout stream, but that's not quite it. What happens is that you begin to see where your troubles fit into the grand scheme of things, and suddenly they're just not such a big deal anymore. ~ John Gierach

She was a widow, and he stripped himself naked while she went to fetch some of her husband's clothes. But before he could put them on, the police were hammering on the front door with their billy clubs. So the fugitive hid on top of a rafter. When the woman let in the police, though, his oversize testicles hung down in full view."
Trout paused again.
The police asked the woman where the guy was. The woman said she didn't know what guy they were talking about," said Trout. "One of the cops saw the testicles hanging down from a rafter and asked what they were. She said they were Chinese temple bells. He believed her. He said he 'd always wanted to hear Chinese temple bells. "He gave them a whack with his billy club, but there was no sound. So he hit them again, a lot harder, a whole lot harder. Do you know what the guy on the rafter shrieked?" Trout asked me. I said I didn't. "He shrieked, 'TING-A-LING, YOU SON OF A BITCH! ~ Kurt Vonnegut

And yet there are many times when it does not make any difference what pattern one uses. One thing is certain. The more bedraggled the fly gets the better the trout like it. I think there is a reason for this. I think the bedraggled half worn out wet fly more closely imitates a nymph than a new one does. Most commercial flies are tied too bushy and full. A little trimming of wings and thinning out of hackles will often work wonders. ~ Ray Bergman

The Hamsters really kick ass - Slim is one of your greatest guitar players ~ Walter Trout

When the word began to get out, the idea of tying imitations of aquatic worms was not met with universal approval in the fly-fishing community. It seems that worms had somehow gotten a bad name. I think a fishing pal of mine hit it on the head when he said, It just pisses them off that you can catch trout, I mean really big trout, on a fly that a five-year old can tie in twenty seconds! ~ Ed Engle

I think people keep baseballs in their cars, just to be prepared in case they see me. It's cool to get recognized in public; it's an incredible feeling. ~ Mike Trout

A successful trader is rational, analytical, able to control emotions, practical, and profit oriented. ~ Monroe Trout

If you have not touched the rocky wall of a canyon. If you have not heard a rushing river pound over cobblestones. If you have not seen a native trout rise in a crystalline pool beneath a shattering riffle, or a golden eagle spread its wings and cover you in shadow. If you have not seen the tree line recede to the top of a bare crested mountain. If you have not looked into a pair of wild eyes and seen your own reflection. Please, for the good of your soul, travel west. ~ Daniel J. Rice

If fishing is a religion, fly fishing is high church. ~ Tom Brokaw

Success and talent aren't even in the same neighborhood. ~ Jenny Trout

At midnight on July 1, 1997, Hongkong, the British Crown Colony, will be restored to China. This is not only an event which will be celebrated by patriotic Chinese; any patriotic American should celebrate it as well. ~ Robert Trout

Hoping that he might peek through a gap in the fance and see that Patch was really a big softy, all bark and no bite, or, as they sometimes say in England, "All mouth and no trousers"! ~ Nick Trout

There are few things deader than a dead brown trout stream. ~ Ed Zern

Silence is a beautiful fresh water tank to raise the trout of thought. ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Maybe your stature as a fly fisherman isn't determined by how big a trout you can catch, but by how small a trout you can catch without being disappointed. ~ John Gierach

The level of potential physical productivity of a society depends on both the development of the intellect of its members, and a minimal standard of both demographic characteristics and of consumption. ~ Robert Trout

God help us
you full of talk of a city called Edinburgh
and me in silence so very deep we were so very much in love.

And the burns and sikes and streams
though shallow
were deep music to us.
You trout-tickler,
you flower-picker,
climber in willow trees, me laughing below

as best I could laugh, though you never thought it ugly.
Indeed the word you used was the word beautiful,
pinning cowslips behind my ears,

you patting and running fingers through our
beckwashed hair.
Lying by the marigold beds
bare toes entwined, then dancing under branches
before the elms ever died. But our mutual hearts never did.

Bar it is 7 and your raining rage
must cease
under my morning moon.
In my dawn shawl looking dawndown upon you
in your foot-striding fellhighhighupuptopheavyrainbeatingrainrain.
We have always walked together so long.
In the long grass we walked and walked forever so long so very language long
and I could say so once you had the slate in my lap.

My tongue blank - FOREVER, word we wrote on a slate, remember
when you taught me? - only my hands and eyes moving now - two
daughters we could have had -

but I am looking kindly and lovingly on you
'Please do it'
- cool your raging fire lovelorn heart - for me.

And love me - forever. ~ Barry MacSweeney

Leibniz dedicated his life to efforts to educate people to understand that true happiness is found by locating their identity in benefitting mankind and their posterity. ~ Robert Trout

Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

It is a very good quality in a man to have a trout-stream. ~ George Eliot

In a clear brook
With joyful haste
The whimsical trout
Shot past me like an arrow
I play the line of the song, I play the leaps and plunges of the right hand of the piano, I am the trout, the angler, the brook, the observer. ~ Vikram Seth

If you have an approach that makes money, then money management can make the difference between success and failure ... I try to be conservative in my risk management. I want to make sure I'll be around to play tomorrow. Risk control is essential. ~ Monroe Trout

Trout might have said, and it can be said of me as well, that he created caricatures rather than characters. His animus against so-called mainstream literature, moreover, wasn't peculiar to him. It was generic among writers of science fiction. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I go fishing not to find myself but to lose myself. ~ Joseph Monninger

One of the first rules in fishing is that there are few rules in fishing that resourceful trout do not manage to break. ~ John D. Voelker

All around him were what other people called mirrors, which he called leaks. The entire wall which separated the lobby from the cocktail lounge was a leak ten feet high and thirty-feet long. There was another leak on the cigarette machine and yet another on the candy machine. And when Trout looked through them to see what was going on in the other universe, he saw a red-eyed, filthy old creature who was barefoot, who had his pants rolled up to his knees. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

And here, according to Trout, was the reason human beings could not reject ideas because they were bad: "Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enmity.

"The ideas Earthlings held didn't matter for hundreds of thousands of years, since they couldn't do much about them anyway. Ideas might as well be badges as anything.

"They even had a saying about the futility of ideas: 'If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.'

"And then Earthlings discovered tools. Suddenly agreeing with friends could be a form of suicide or worse. But agreements went on, not for the sake of common sense or decency or self-preservation, but for friendliness.

"Earthlings went on being friendly, when they should have been thinking instead. And even when they built computers to do some thinking for them, they designed them not so much for wisdom as for friendliness. So they were doomed. Homicidal beggars could ride. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I used to write in a room overlooking the valley from where I could see too much, whether checking the sheep and alpacas or seeing the trout rise on the lake. ~ Antony Beevor

I don't think Trout has ever been out of the country," Rosewater went on. "My God - he writes about Earthlings all the time, and they're all Americans. Practically nobody on Earth is an American. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Love is a myth.'
'Love is a myth,' Grandfather Trout said. 'Like summer.'
'What?'
'In winter,'Grandfather Trout said, 'summer is a myth. A report, a rumor. Not to be believed in. Get it? Love is a myth. So is summer. ~ John Crowley

The Heron

Every morning at dawn the heron comes winging across the woods to rob my lake of its trout. It is not a very large lake, and there are not very many trout; soon there will be none at all if the heron continues to breakfast in this fashion. I would not grudge him a reasonable meal occasionally, but he is an indiscriminate and extravagant fisherman who pulls out trout too large for him to swallow and strews them mangled on the bank. The good fisherman, the honest angler, returns his smaller catch to the water; the heron acts contrariwise, failing to return those which are too big to be of any use to him. The other day he was seen struggling with one half way down his throat; and in spite of my liking for herons, especially when they frequent other people's lakes and streams, I confess I wish it had choked him. ~ Vita Sackville-West

The American Revolution was, in fact, a battle against the philosophy of Locke and the English utilitarians. ~ Robert Trout

I shall now confess to you that none of those three trout had to be beheaded, or folded double, to fit their casket. What was big was not the trout, but the chance. What was full was not my creel, but my memory. ~ Aldo Leopold

Catching fish is not a mental game between fish and angler. A 'smart' trout is only smarter than other trout, not smarter than a fisherman. An angler must take the puzzle of the day's conditions, and matching those conditions and his knowledge of the fish come up with a good catch. He competes with a concept, not with a fish's brain. ~ Lee Wulff

And the peanut butter-eaters on Earth were preparing to conquer the shazzbutter-eaters on the planet in the book by Kilgore Trout. By this time, the Earthlings hadn't just demolished West Virginia and Southeast Asia. They had demolished everything. So they were ready to go pioneering again.

They studied the shazzbutter-eaters by means of electronic snooping, and determined that they were too numerous and proud and resourceful ever to allow themselves to be pioneered.

So the Earthlings infiltrated the ad agency which had the shazzbutter account, and they buggered the statistics in the ads. They made the average for everything so high that everybody on the planet felt inferior to the majority in very respect.

Then the Earthling armored space ships came and discovered the planet. Only token resistance was offered here and there, because the natives felt so below average. And then the pioneering began. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

We tossed the bag into the pool. I resisted the urge to jump in after it.
"There you go, Andvari," I said. "Enjoy."
Or maybe Andvari was gone. In which case we'd just made a family of trout billionaires. ~ Rick Riordan

Kilgore Trout, incidentally, could never be President of the United States without a Constitutional amendment. He hadn't been born inside the country. His birthplace was Bermuda. His father, Leo Trout, while remaining an American citizen, worked there for many years for the Royal Ornithological Society - guarding the only nesting place in the world for Bermuda Erns. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Then I smiled at her, right before I grbbed a handful of copper hair and yanked her out of the chair. Screw being a better person. ~ Jenny Trout

Often I have been exhausted on trout streams, uncomfortable, wet, cold, briar scarred, sunburned, mosquito bitten, but never, with a fly rod in my hand have I been less than in a place that was less than beautiful. ~ Charles Kuralt

I've just been playing the Trout Quintet on the phonograph. Listening to the andantino makes me want to be a trout myself. You can't help rejoicing and laughing, however moved or sad you feel, when you see the springtime clouds in the sky, the budding branches, moved by the wind, in the bright early sunlight. I'm really looking forward to the spring again. In that piece of Schubert's you can positively feel and smell the breeze and hear the birds and the whole of creation shouting for joy. ~ Sophie Scholl

Never leave fish to find fish. ~ Moses

I've swallowed fish-eyes whole
like an endoscope.
I once ate a trout cooked inside a dolphin.
Felt like a shark eating another shark,
inside the cold-blooded womb of yet another shark. ~ Yann Rousselot