I started out thinking of America as highways and state lines. As I got to know it better, I began to think of it as rivers.

Often I have been exhausted on trout streams, uncomfortable, wet, cold, briar scarred, sunburned, mosquito bitten, but never, with a fly rod in my hand have I been less than in a place that was less than beautiful.

I don't think one should ever come to my stage of life and have to look back and say, Gosh. I wish I hadn't spent all those years doing that job I was never really interested in.

It's best to leap into something you know you love. You might change your mind later, but that is the privilege of youth.

Most of those old settlers told it like it was, rough and rocky. They named their towns Rimrock, Rough Rock, Round Rock, and Wide Ruins, Skull Valley, Bitter Springs, Wolf Hole, Tombstone. It's a tough country. The names of Arizona towns tell you all you need to know.

I had a tight stomach all the time. I actually developed ulcers. I've learned better than to put all that internal pressure on myself.

I had a little insight into life that most kids probably didn't have. My mother was a schoolteacher, and my father was a social worker. Through his eyes I saw the underside of society.