"Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics that it can never be fully learnt" -- Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler
"After the doctor's departure Koznyshev expressed the wish to go to the
river with his fishing rod. He was fond of angling and was apparently proud
of being fond of such a stupid occupation."
-- Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
"He said, 'They are feeding on drowned yellow stone flies.'
I asked him, 'How did you think that out?' ...
'All there is to thinking', he said, 'is seeing something noticeable
which makes you see something you weren't noticing which makes you see
something that isn't even visible.'
I said to my brother, 'Give me a cigarette and say what you mean'."
-- Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It
"There is a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot." -- Anonymous
"I am haunted by water." -- Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It
"Fly fishing is for those who hold that the fun in the race of life is in the running,
not just the winning, that existence is its own justification, that a day spent in a stream
or a pond with a goal in mind is a joy even if the goal is not achieved, though a greater
joy if it is."
-- Jon Margolis and Jeff MacNelly, How to Fool Fish with Feathers
"By the time I had turned thirty, I'd realized two important things. One, I had to fish. Two,
I had to work for a living." -- Mallory Burton
"In the best stories about fly fishing ... big fish are caught or lost; people say wild and
spontaneous words; event becomes memory and sometimes, in the hands of a master, bleeds into
art."
-- Nick Lyons, author of Bright Rivers and Confessions of a Fly Fishing Addict
"To ask certain questions is to answer them. The answer to 'Should we punt?' is always yes. The answer
to "Is that Sinatra or one of the other guys?' is always one of the other guys. The answer to
'Is this fly too big?' is always yes."
-- Jon Margolis and Jeff MacNelly, How to Fool Fish with Feathers
"When I go fishing I ... want to get away from it all, for it is silence and solitude even more than
it is fish that I am seeking ... As for big fish, all is relative. Not every tuna is a trophy."
-- William Humphrey
"My wife wonders why all women do not seek anglers for husbands. She has come in contact with many
in her life with me and she claims that they all have a sweetness in their nature which others lack."
-- Ray Bergman, author of Trout, and Just Fishing
"Fishing takes anglers to the best places, at the best times of year."
-- Anonymous
"I look into ... my fly box, and think about all the elements I should consider in choosing the
perfect fly: water temperature, what stage of development the bugs are in, what the fish are eating
right now. Then I remember what a guide told me: 'Ninety percent of what a trout eats is brown and
fuzzy and about five-eighths of an inch long.'"
-- Allison Moir, "Love the Man, Love the Fly Rod", in A Different Angle: Fly Fishing Stories by Women