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

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

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

I sat there and forgot and forgot, until what remained was the river that went by and I who watched. On the river the heat mirages danced with each o….

When I was young, a teacher had forbidden me to say "more perfect" because she said if a thing is perfect it can't be more so. But by now I had seen ….

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

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

He told us about Christ's disciples being fisherman, and we were left to assume...that all great fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fisherman a….

It is very important to a lot of people to make unmistakably clear to themselves and to the universe that they love the universe but are not intimida….

At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear..

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….

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….

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

Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn't….

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

I had as yet no notion that life every now and then becomes literature—not for long, of course, but long enough to be what we best remember, and ofte….

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

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 oft….

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 comp….

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

Yet even in the loneliness of the canyon I knew there were others like me who had brothers they did not understand but wanted to help. We are probabl….