Norman Maclean Quotes

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.

At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear.

All good things come by grace, and grace comes by art, and art does not come easy.

At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear. It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us. You can love completely without complete understanding.

It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.

Many of us would probably be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect

The world is full of bastards, the number increasing rapidly the further one gets from Missoula, Montana.

We can love completely what we cannot completely understand.

One great thing about fly fishing is that after a while nothing exists of the world but thoughts about fly fishing

The nearest anyone can come to finding himself at any given age is to find a story that somehow tells him about himself.

A river, though, has so many things to say that it is hard to know what it says to each of us.

In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.

When exhausted and feeling sorry for yourself, at least change your socks.

At the time I did not know that stories of life are often more like rivers than books.

Help is giving part of yourself to somebody who comes to accept it willingly and needs it badly.

One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful even if it is only a floating ash.

...life every now and then becomes literature...as if life had been made and not happened.

I am haunted by waters.

I knew that, when needed, mountains would move for me.

My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him all good things-trout as well as eternal salvation-come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.

Unless we are willing to escape into sentimentality or fantasy, often the best we can do with catastrophes, even our own, is to find out exactly what happened and restore some of the missing parts.

Now nearly all those I loved and did not understand when I was young are dead, but I still reach out to them.

A mystery of the universe is how it has managed to survive with so much volunteer help.

If our father had had his way, nobody who did not know how to fish would be allowed to disgrace a fish by catching him.

Slowly we became silent, and silence itself if an enemy to friendship.

Ahead and to the west was our ranger station - and the mountains of Idaho, poems of geology stretching beyond any boundaries and seemingly even beyond the world.

How can a question be answered that asks a lifetime of questions.

The hardest thing usually to leave behind, as was the case now, can loosely be called the conscience.

If you push me far enough, all I really know is that he was a fine fisherman.""You know more than that, " my father said. "He was beautiful.

You can love completely without complete understanding.

At sunrise, everything is luminous but not clear

... you can love completely without complete understanding.""That I have known and preached." my father said.

I tried to find something I already knew about life that might help me reach out and touch my brother and get him to look at me and himself.

For a scientist, this is a good way to live and die, maybe the ideal way for any of us - excitedly finding we were wrong and excitedly waiting for tomorrow to come so we can start over.