Norman Maclean Quotes

American author and scholar (1902–1990)

Norman Fitzroy Maclean (December 23, 1902 – August 2, 1990) was an American author and scholar noted for his books A River Runs Through It and Other Stories (1976) and Young Men and Fire (1992).

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Alternative Names: Norman Fitzroy Maclean

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He told his Continental Divide stories in a seemingly light-hearted, slightly poetical mood such as reporters often use in writing 'human-interest' stories, but, if the mood were removed, his stories would appear as something about him that would not meet the approval of his family and that I would probably find out about in time anyway. He also must have felt honor-bound to tell me he lived other lives, even if he presented them to me as puzzles in the form of funny stories. Often I did not know what I had been told about him as we crossed the divide between our two worlds.

All there is to thinking, he said, is seeing something noticeable which makes you see something you weren't noticing which makes you see something that isn't even visible.

Help,” he said, “is giving part of yourself to somebody who comes to accept it willingly and needs it badly.

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 other and then they danced through each other and then they joined hands and danced around each other. Eventually the watcher joined the river, and there was only one of us. I believe it was the river.

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

dry channel, so I could enliven its stony remains