"You like to tell true stories, don't you? he (my father) asked, and I answered, "Yes, I like to tell stories that are true."

Then he asked, "After you have finished your true stories sometime, why don't you make up a story and the people to go with it?

"Only then will yo understand what happened and why.

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

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

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. Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening.  Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the big blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.  The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time.  On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops.  Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

I am haunted by waters.

Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It, pg. 104

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

Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It, pg. 102

Conversation between Norman and his father about Paul's quandry

"You are too young to help anybody and I am too old,"  he said.  "By help I don't mean a coutesy like serving chokecherry jelly or giving money.
"Help," he said, "is giving part of yourself ot somebody who comes to accept it willingly and needs it badly.
"So it is," he said, using and old homiletic transition, "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.  It is like the auto-supply shop over town where they always say, 'Sorry, we are just out of that part.'"
I told him, "you make it too tough.  Help doesn't have to be anything that big."
He asked me, "Do you think your mother helps him by buttering his rolls?"
"She might," I told him.  "In fact, yes, I think she does."
"Do you think you help him?" he asked me.
"I try to," I said. "My trouble is I don't know him. In fact, one of my trouble is that I don't even know whether he needs help.  I don't know, that's my trouble."
"That should have been my text," my father said.  "We are willing to help Lord, but what if anything is needed?
"I still know how to fish," he concluded.  "Tomorrow we will go fishing with him."

As the heat mirages on the river in front of me danced with and through each other, I could feel patterns from my own life joining with them.  It was here, while waiting for my brother, that I started this story, although, of course, at the time I did not know that stories of life are often more like rivers than books.  But I knew a story had begun, perhaps long ago near the sound of water.  And I sensed that ahead I would meet something that would never erode so there would be a sharp turn, deep circles, a deposit, and quietness.

The fisherman even has a phrase to describe what he does when he studies the patterns of a river.  he says he is "reading the water," and perhaps to tell his stories he has to do much the same thing.  Then one of his biggest problems is to guess where and at what time of day life lies ready to be taken as a joke.  And to guess whether it is going to be a little or a big joke.

For all of us, though, it is much easier to read the waters of tragedy.

Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It, pg. 63-64

The cast is so soft and slow that it can be followed like an ash settling from a fireplace chimney.  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.

Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It, pg. 43

I had not choice now but to cast into the willows if I wanted to know why fish were jumping in the water all around me except in this hole, and I still wanted to know, becasue it is not fly fishing if you are not looking for answers to questions.

Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It, pg. 42

You can't catch fish if you don't dare go where they are.

Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It, pg. 42

Something within fishermen tries to make fishing into a world perfect and apart--I don't know what it is or where, because sometimes it is in my arms and sometimes in my throat and sometimes nowhere in particular except somewhere deep. Many of us probably would be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect.

Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It, pg. 37

I could never be talked into believing that all a fish knows is hunger and fear.   I have tried to feel nothing but hunger and fear and don't see how a fish could ever grow to six inches if that were all he ever felt.

Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It, pg. 19

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.

Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It, pg. 4

"When a trout rising to a fly gets hooked on a line and finds himself unable to swim about freely, he begins with a fight which results in struggles and splashes and sometimes an escape. Often, of course, the situation is too tough for him.

"In the same way the human begin struggles with his environment and with the hooks that catch him. Sometimes he masters his difficulties; sometimes they are too much for him. His struggles are all that the world sees and it naturally misunderstands them. It is hard for a free fish to understand what is happening to a hooked one."

-Karl A. Menninger