The nearest anyone can come to finding himself at any given age is to find a story that somehow tells him about himself.

Slowly we became silent, and silence itself if an enemy to friendship.

My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him all good things-trout as well as eternal salvation-come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.

A river, though, has so many things to say that it is hard to know what it says to each of us.

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 water joined the river, and there was only one of us. I believe it was the river.

The nearest anyone can come to finding himself at any given age is to find a story that somehow tells him about himself.

In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.