“To hope for [immortality],' said the Patriarch, 'would be like trying to fish the moon out of the water.'
'There you go again!' said Monkey. 'What pray do you mean by fishing the moon out of the water?'
'When the moon is in the sky,' said the Patriarch, 'it is reflected in the water. It looks just like a real thing, but if you try to catch hold of it, you find it is only an illusion.”

“I said breathe. Not do a fish-out of-water imitation.”

“If you try to breathe water, you will not turn into a fish, you will drown; but water is still good to drink.”

“I don't believe in this nonsense about time. Time is just common, it's like water for a fish. Everybody's in this water, nobody gets out of it, or if he does the same thing happens to him that happens to the fish, he dies. And you know what happens in this water, time? The big fish eat the little fish. That's all. The big fish eat the little fish and the ocean doesn't care.”

“When you fell in the sea, you should have heard them cheer. I made them rope the yard and fish you up. I said a ducking in water washes the witch-skill out of a woman until next full moon, and it would be bad luck to let you drown. How about that for a clever story? They’d believe anything if you make it sound silly enough.”

“There were many times that I felt like a fish out of water, times that I really said to myself, 'do I even fit in.”

“When you feel homesick,’ he said, ‘just look up. Because the moon is the same wherever you go.”

“What do you do there, moon, in the sky? Tell me what you do, silent moon. When evening comes you rise and go contemplating wastelands; then you set.”

“I am, out of the ladies' company, like a fish out of the water.”

“I think Genesis in the Old Testament has it wrong. I don’t think we were thrown out of the Garden of Eden. Just look around. We’re still in it, particularly when you compare the earth with the moon. The moon has no plants, no life, no water, no animals, no nothing.”