Fly tackle has improved considerably since 1676, when Charles Cotton advised anglers to 'fish fine and far off,' but no one has ever improved on that statement.

The solution to any problem -work, love, money, whatever -is to go fishing, and the worse the problem, the longer the trip should be.

I think I fish, in part, because it's an anti-social, bohemian business that, when gone about properly, puts you forever outside the mainstream culture without actually landing you in an institution.

Maybe your stature as a fly fisherman isn't determined by how big a trout you can catch, but by how small a trout you can catch without being disappointed.

Cell phones have changed us from a nation of self-reliant pioneer types into a bunch of men standing alone in supermarkets saying, ‘Okay, I’m in the tampon aisle, but I don’t see it.'

I used to like fishing because I thought it had some larger significance. Now I like fishing because it's the one thing I can think of that probably doesn't.

If people don't occasionally walk away from you shaking their heads, you're doing something wrong.

The best fisherman I know try not to make the same mistakes over and over again; instead they strive to make new and interesting mistakes and to remember what they learned from them.

I still enjoy the company of most dogs more than that of most people, because dogs are capable of uncomplicated enthusiasm.

It's an odd fact of life that whichever side of the stream you're on, two-thirds of the best water is out of reach on the other side.

Creeps and idiots cannot conceal themselves for long on a fishing trip.

Uniform of a soldier and uniform of a student both are equally needed for the nation.

Soul receives from soul that knowledge, therefore not by book nor from tongue. If knowledge of mysteries come after emptiness of mind, that is illumination of heart.

Once you feel nice about yourself, you have planted the first seed to develop self-confidence.

Spirituality does not come from religion. It comes from our soul.

The disembodied being stays in the same state of mind that it was in when it was embodied, unless it does something to change that while it is out of the body.

Reading enables us to see with the keenest eyes, to hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time.

The people will come to their own at last,-God is not mocked forever.

There is a tendency to try to dumb everything down and turn everything into a one-paragraph press release or even less, just a slogan.

There is no greater pleasure in the world than riding a good horse.

I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.