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

Norman Maclean

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Norman Maclean
Age: 87 †
Born: 1902
Born: December 23
Died: 1990
Died: August 2
Author
Journalist
Novelist
University Teacher
Writer
Clarinda
Iowa
Norman Fitzroy Maclean
Rivers
Says
Though
Water
Many
Hard
Things
River
Environmental

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The nearest anyone can come to finding himself at any given age is to find a story that somehow tells him about himself.
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Now nearly all those I loved and did not understand when I was young are dead, but I still reach out to them.
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How can a question be answered that asks a lifetime of questions.
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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.
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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 and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.
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One great thing about fly fishing is that after a while nothing exists of the world but thoughts about fly fishing
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We can love completely what we cannot completely understand.
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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 probably those referred to as our brother's keepers, possessed of one of the oldest and possible one of the most futile and certainly one of the most haunting instincts. It will not let us go.
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Probably most catastrophes end this way without an ending, the dead not even knowing how they died...,those who loved them forever questioning this unnecessary death, and the rest of us tiring of this inconsolable catastrophe and turning to the next one.
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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 enough of life to have regained my confidence in it.
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In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.
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When exhausted and feeling sorry for yourself, at least change your socks.
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The world is full of bastards, the number increasing rapidly the further one gets from Missoula, Montana.
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A mystery of the universe is how it has managed to survive with so much volunteer help.
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Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.
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...life every now and then becomes literature...as if life had been made and not happened.
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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
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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.
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The hardest thing usually to leave behind, as was the case now, can loosely be called the conscience.
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All good things come by grace, and grace comes by art, and art does not come easy.
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