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.

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

The world is full of bastards, the number increasing rapidly the further one gets from Missoula, Montana.

When exhausted and feeling sorry for yourself, at least change your socks.

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

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.

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