At the time I did not know that stories of life are often more like rivers than books.

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

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.

Poets talk about "spots of time", but it is really the fishermen who experience eternity compressed into a moment. No one can tell what a spot of time is until suddenly the whole world is a fish and the fish is gone.

All good things come by grace, and grace comes by art, and art does not come easy.

We sat on the bank and the river went by. As always, it was making sounds to itself, and now it made sounds to us. It would be hard to find three men sitting side by side who knew better what a river was saying.

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