“It is difficult to see why anyone becomes a fisherman. Dreadful things happen to them constantly: they lose their nets; the fish are wild; sea-lions get into the nets and tear their way out; snags are caught; there are no fish, and the price is high; there are too many fish, and the price is low; and if some means could be devised so that the fish swam up to a boat, wriggled up a trough, squirmed their way into the fish-hold, and pulled ice over themselves with their own fins, the imprecations would be terrible because they had not removed their own entrails and brought their own ice. There is no happiness for fishermen anywhere.”

– John Steinbeck, Sea of Cortez, p. 83 – 84, (1941)