- Henry Limpet: What if I told you I was once a human being?
- Ladyfish: I don't care how terrible your past was, Limpet.
- Henry Limpet: Do you suppose that we could just be more or less friends?
- Ladyfish: Friends? But wouldn't that be more or less nothing, Limpet?
- Henry Limpet: I wish I were a fish. Fish have a better life than people.
- [singing]
- Henry Limpet: I wish, I wish, I wish I were a fish, 'Causes fishes have a better life than people...
- [Crusty and Limpet are swimming into a sunken ship]
- Crusty: Hey, don't go moseyin' around in this thing's innards. No wonder this thing died! Look at all the kind of stuff it ate!
- Henry Limpet: Say listen, I have an idea. Why don't we all go over to the university tomorrow for Professor Hoffmeyer's lecture!
- George Stickel: ...Lecture?
- Henry Limpet: Yeah, on decapods of the genera padurus! You know George he's eh, he's gonna talk about the eh, mating habits of the shellfish, eh heh heh. It's a little risque, sorta for adults only.
- George Stickel: Uh, I'll just pass on that action Henry, I got a weak heart.
- Bessie Limpet: I'm bewildered, Henry. Henry, am I the widow of a man or the wife of a fish?
- Henry Limpet: Well now, let's be logical, Bessie. You couldn't very well keep me in the bathtub, could you?
- Henry Limpet: Doesn't it kind of give you a thrill of hope, George?
- George Stickel: Hope for what, Henry?
- Henry Limpet: With the war in Europe and new weapons being invented all the time, why, well what if men were actually foolish enough to destroy themselves completely? Then, you see, the fish in the ocean would develop into a new race of men and - well, this time they might turn out better, you see?
- Bessie Limpet: How would you like a cocktail, George?
- Admiral P.P. Spewter: The fish - has a wife - in Brooklyn?
- Harlock: She's not a fish. She's a real woman.
- Admiral P.P. Spewter: I knew I should've thrown you out the first time you came to me with this fish story.
- [first lines]
- Harlock: When we locked this file back in 1945, I hoped we'd never have to open it again.
- George Stickel: Can't we just keep it closed and mark it "Rest in Peace"?
- Harlock: Not as long as naval scientists are trying to prove that porpoises have brain structures rivaling man's.
- Miss Barnes: I'm sure your wife will be happy to know you'll never be called.
- Henry Limpet: Well, I hope so. But Bessie's very patriotic. And very healthy. They may take her.
- Henry Limpet: Don't be upset, Miss Barnes!
- Miss Barnes: There's a fish in the water cooler.
- Henry Limpet: I know. It's mine!
- Bessie Limpet: [Henry kisses Bessie on the cheek] Control yourself, Henry. We have a guest.
- Henry Limpet: I'm sorry, George.
- George Stickel: You're a sticky Casanova, but I'll forgive you.
- George Stickel: Henry, I am now a Machinist's Mate Second Class.
- Henry Limpet: Machinist's Mate Second Class. You look first class to me, George. What kind of a machine are you mated to?
- Bessie Limpet: He's read hundreds of scientific books on the subject. He claims millions of years ago there was nothing but *fish* in the world.
- Henry Limpet: That's right! And then, you see, some of those ancient creatures became amphibians - and they crawled out on land, you see. And then millions of years later they became men.
- George Stickel: Yeah? Well, I know some who ought to crawl right back again.
- Bessie Limpet: Look at him, George. Always drawing into his shell, going off into his fish world!
- George Stickel: Say, Henry, old boy, if you just stand there staring down at that cup of sardines, you're - liable to go off your nut.
- Henry Limpet: Do you realize that our ancestors were fish?
- Bessie Limpet: Maybe *your* ancestors, Henry. Not mine.
- Henry Limpet: I do like the water.
- Bessie Limpet: Water and fish. If you paid half as much attention to me as you do those fish, I'd be the happiest wife in Flatbush!
- Henry Limpet: Dear, it's just that fish are so bright and cheerful. And so beautiful.
- Bessie Limpet: Didn't you see any sign of him at all?
- George Stickel: Afraid he's gone, Bessie. I guess he must have lost his glasses during the fall. I saw a fish wearing them.
- Bessie Limpet: A fish? Oh. Oh, no. Oh, George!
- Henry Limpet: [singing] He flirts with every lady fish, As he goes swimming by, And if she gives her tail a swish, And winks a fishy eye, A minnow all at once can be a whale of a guy...
- Crusty: Jumping St. Elmo's fire! Who in blue blazes invited you in here?
- Henry Limpet: Huh? Who? What is it?
- Crusty: Slammin' right into my private quarters. Come about and stand by for action, you four-eyed flounder!
- Henry Limpet: Say, you're talking to me.
- Crusty: You bet your binnacle I'm talking to you, matey! Now, hoist your tail and git!
- Henry Limpet: I'm a Limpet. Henry Limpet from Brooklyn. You know, Flatbush.
- Crusty: I've seen flat fish, but I've never seen no four-eyed flat bush.
- Henry Limpet: Well, I'm not really a fish. I-I-I'm a man. Or, I was a man until quite recently.
- Crusty: Listen, Flatbush, anything I hate, it's a smart-aleck fish.
- Crusty: Gotta hand it to you, Flatbush. That whale-bustin' noise of yours is really somethin'! I guess that long-legged blob of shrimp bait'll think twice before he fools with *us* again.
- Henry Limpet: I didn't mean to barge in on you, but a shark was chasing me.
- Crusty: Shark! Jumpin' jellyfish! You just swing about and let that shark chase you full speed away from here!
- Crusty: You mean to say that blast came out of you? Why, you loudmouth son of a bellerin' barracudi! That belch of yours like to capsize me in the backwash! If you sound off like that again, I swear I'll - batten your gills and lower the *boom* on ye.
- Henry Limpet: It's only a mirror. It's - me. So, that's what I look like.
- Crusty: Well, swab my scuppers. Another Flatbush!
- Henry Limpet: I'm not a bad-looking fish at that. Really, a pretty unique specimen.
- Crusty: You got a couple of good points, lad, but beauty ain't one of 'em.
- Henry Limpet: Look at that strong gill structure. And did you ever see such a fine dorsal formation? But maybe I'm a freak! Am I gonna be like this for just a little while or always? I'm probably the only one of my kind. Oh, if only there was another fish like me. Even just one! Someone who would understand me.
- Ladyfish: I think you're wonderful.
- Henry Limpet: Well, uh, say, does that mean that you - like me?
- Ladyfish: Oh, yes, I like you very - very much.
- Henry Limpet: Is that right? Well, golly.
- Ladyfish: Shall we go?
- Henry Limpet: Go? Go where?
- Ladyfish: Why, to the spawning grounds. After what you did for me, l...
- Henry Limpet: No. Now, now wait! You don't know what you're saying!
- Ladyfish: Oh, but I do.
- Henry Limpet: That was me!
- George Stickel: You? You-you-you a fish? Oh, well, yes! Well, if you were a fish you certainly would need to wear your glasses, Henry.
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