Norman Maclean
Norman Maclean
Norman Fitzroy Macleanwas an American author and scholar noted for his books A River Runs Through It and Other Storiesand Young Men and Fire...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth23 December 1902
CountryUnited States of America
sea fishing dry
He told us about Christ's disciples being fisherman, and we were left to assume...that all great fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fisherman and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.
art father fishing
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.
summer memories thinking
Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn't. Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.
volunteer helping mystery
A mystery of the universe is how it has managed to survive with so much volunteer help.
age stories given
The nearest anyone can come to finding himself at any given age is to find a story that somehow tells him about himself.
sorry feelings exhausted
When exhausted and feeling sorry for yourself, at least change your socks.
rivers water hard
A river, though, has so many things to say that it is hard to know what it says to each of us.
beautiful ashes becoming
One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful even if it is only a floating ash.
literature now-and-then made
...life every now and then becomes literature...as if life had been made and not happened.
beautiful father able
As for my father, I never knew whether he believed God was a mathematician but he certainly believed God could count and that only by picking up God's rhythms were we able to regain power and beauty. Unlike many Presbyterians, he often used the word "beautiful.
missing fantasy willing
Unless we are willing to escape into sentimentality or fantasy, often the best we can do with catastrophes, even our own, is to find out exactly what happened and restore some of the missing parts.
giving helping needed
So it is that we can seldom help anybody. Either we don't know what part to give or maybe we don't like to give any part of ourselves. Then, more often than not, the part that is needed is not wanted. And even more often, we do not have the part that is needed.
moving mountain needed
I knew that, when needed, mountains would move for me.
fishing gone world
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.