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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If Socrates had been foreman on the Mann Gulch fire, he and his crew would have been cremated while they were sitting there considering it.

Life every now and then becomes literature [...] long enough to be what we best remember, and often enough so that what we eventually come to mean by life are those moments when life, instead of going sideways, backwards, forward, or nowhere at all, lines out straight, tense and inevitable, with a complication, climax, and, given some luck, a purgation, as if life had been made and not happened.

My collection of stories is called A River Runs Through It, and they are love stories: stories of my love of craft — of what men and women can do with their hands — and of my love of seeing life turn into literature.

Avevamo in comune un'importante teoria sulle risse: quando pare che stia per scoppiarne una, mena per primo.

It was a beautiful stretch of water, either to a fisherman or a photographer, although each would have focused his equipment on a different point. It was a barely submerged waterfall. The reef of rock was about two feet under the water, so the whole river rose into one wave, shook itself into spray, then fell back on itself and turned blue. After it recovered from the shock, it came back to see how it had fallen.

Mio padre possedeva sicurezze incrollabili su certe faccende inerenti all'universo. Per lui, tutte le cose buone – dalle trote alla salute eterna – derivavano dalla grazia, e la grazia dall'arte, e l'arte non è una cosa facile.