A Contemplative Man

"Perchance he is not confounded by many knowledges, and has not sought out many inventions, but how to take many fishes before the sun sets, with his slender birchen pole and flaxen line, that is invention enough for him."
"His fishing was not a sport, nor solely a means of subsistence, but a sort of solemn sacrament and withdrawal from the world."

"Whether we live by the seaside, or by the lakes and rivers, or on the prairie, it concerns us to attend to the nature of fishes."

"There are fishes wherever there is a fluid medium, and even in clouds and in melted metals we detect their semblance."

-Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

I don't know why fish are so good for friendships. Maybe the answer is in Thoreau, but I prefer to believe it's on a river with my buddies.