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.
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.
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.
In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.
One great thing about fly fishing is that after a while nothing exists of the world but thoughts about fly fishing.
When exhausted and feeling sorry for yourself, at least change your socks.
We sat on the bank and the river went by. As always, it was making sounds to itself, and now it made sounds to us. It would be hard to find three men sitting side by side who knew better what a river was saying.
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.
Poets talk about “spots of time”, but it is really the fishermen who experience eternity compressed into a moment. No one can tell what a spot of time is until suddenly the whole world is a fish and the fish is gone.
So it is that we can seldom help anybody. Either we don’t know what part to give or maybe we don’t like to give any part of ourselves. Then, more often than not, the part that is needed is not wanted. And even more often, we do not have the part that is needed.
The nearest anyone can come to finding himself at any given age is to find a story that somehow tells him about himself.
A mystery of the universe is how it has managed to survive with so much volunteer help.
A river, though, has so many things to say that it is hard to know what it says to each of us.
It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.
We can love completely what we cannot completely understand.
Now nearly all those I loved and did not understand when I was young are dead, but I still reach out to them.
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.
How can a question be answered that asks a lifetime of questions.