As I get considerably beyond the biblical allotment of three score years and ten, I feel with increasing intensity that I can express my gratitude for still being around on the oxygen-side of the earth's crust only by not standing pat on what I have hitherto known and loved. While oxygen lasts, there are still new things to love, especially if compassion is a form of love.

Help is giving part of yourself to somebody who comes to accept it willingly and needs it badly.

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.

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

We can love completely what we cannot completely understand.

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.