"mine were the sure, swift dartings of a deformed but hefty trout at home with the water, finning and hovering in its warm black pool." p. 3

"If a man's wife was his nemesis, his antagonist, his antithesis, Ma is H20's." p. 5

"And anyone who thinks I brag is stating that I understand fish-thought is obviously ignorant of the way in which fish think. Believe me, it's nothing to brag about." p. 13

"A fish without an exact weight and length is a nonentity, whereas a sixteen-incher or the twelve-pounder leaps out of the imagination, splashing the brain with cold spray." p. 15

"After all, I'd fished as intently as perhaps any boy had ever done, and I not only failed to encounter Walton's God, I failed to see the least evidence of His existence." p. 38

"The Doberman lay quivering and jerking on the lawn a few feet away, its...