Norman Maclean Quotes

I sat there and forgot and forgot, until what remained was the river that went by and I who watched... Eventually the watcher joined the river, and there was only one of us. I believe it was the river.
Even the anatomy of a river was laid bare. Not far downstream was a dry channel where the river had run once, and part of the way to come to know a thing is through its death. But years ago I had known the river when it flowed through this now dry channel, so I could enliven its stony remains with the waters of memory.

The hardest thing usually to leave behind, as was the case now, can loosely be called the conscience.

"As a Scot and a Presbyterian, my father believed that man by nature was a mess and had fallen from an original state of grace. Somehow, I early developed the notion that he had done this by falling from a tree. As for my father, I never knew whether he believed God was a mathematician but he certainly believed God could count and that only by picking up God's rhythms were we able to regain power and beauty. Unlike many Presbyterians, he often used the word "beautiful.

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 those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.

For a scientist, this is a good way to live and die, maybe the ideal way for any of us - excitedly finding we were wrong and excitedly waiting for tomorrow to come so we can start over.

Sunrise is the time to feel that you will be able to find out how to help somebody close to you who you think needs help even if he doesn't think. At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear

...it is not fly fishing if you are not looking for answers to questions.

"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."

You like to tell true stories, don't you?' he 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 you understand what happened and why.
It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.

At sunrise, everything is luminous but not clear

If he comes back,” she nodded. I thought I saw tears in her eyes but I was mistaken. In all my life, I was never to see her cry. And also he was never to come back. Without interrupting each other, we both said at the same time, “Let's never get out of touch with each other.” And we never have, although her death has come between us.

On the Big Blackfoot River above the mouth of Belmont Creek the banks are fringed by large Ponderosa pines. In the slanting sun of late afternoon the shadows of great branches reached from across the river, and the trees took the river in their arms. The shadows continued up the bank, until they included us

What a beautiful world it was once. At least a river of it was.

They were still so young they hadn't learned to count the odds and to sense they might owe the universe a tragedy.

A mystery of the universe is how it has managed to survive with so much volunteer help.