I have never seen a river that I could not love. Moving water... has a fascinating vitality. It has power and grace and associations. It has a thousand colors and a thousand shapes, yet it follows laws so definite that the tiniest streamlet is an exact replica of a great river.

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

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.

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

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.

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

A fisherman is always hopeful -- nearly always more hopeful than he has any right to be.