A river is water is its loveliest form; rivers have life and sound and movement and infinity of variation, rivers are veins of the earth through which the lifeblood returns to the heart

Anglers...exaggerate grossly and make gentle and inoffensive creatures sound like wounded buffalo and man-eating tigers.

A man should think when he fishing of all manner and shape of things, flowing as easily through the mind as the light stream among the rocks

I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel.

I have fished through fishless days that I remember happily without regret.

It is quite easy to debase the sport, change its values, dilute its ethics and destroy its traditional associations with quietness, relaxation and the opportunity to think. Angling is not a competitive sport. The fisherman'- s only real competition is with his quarry and his only real challenge is the challenge to himself. Nothing can add to this, but the blight of interhuman competition can certainly detract from it.

Our tradition is that of the first man who sneaked away to the creek when the tribe did not really need fish.