The old man knew he was going far out and he left the smell of the land behind and rowed out into the clean early morning smell of the ocean.

La vela [...], recogida, parecía el estandarte de una eterna derrota.

The house was built on the highest part of the narrow tongue of land between the harbor and the open sea. It had lasted through three hurricanes and it was built solid as a ship.

You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food, he thought. You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?

Perhaps I should not have been a fisherman, he thought. But that was the thing that I was born for.

It was considered a virtue not to talk unnecessarily at sea...

Anglers have a way of romanticizing their battles with fish.