10-07-03

Quotes

    "He did not want any big brother advice or money or help, and, in the end, I could not help him."

    "I suppose it was inevitable that my brother and I would get into one big fight which also would be the last one."

    Connections in this book and in my life are fighting in front of your mother isn't a good thing to do, it makes you realize fighting isn't the option.

Interesting Questions

10-08-03

Quotes

   "His overdeveloped right wrist held his right hand over his eyes so that in some drunken way he thought I could not see him and he may also have thought that he could not see himself."

    "One great thing about fly fishing is that after a while nothing exists of the world but thoughts about fly fishing."

    Connection with my life and the book is don't go out with and get drunk, it only leads to bad things.

10-09-03

Quotes

    "Even thought Paul must have had three or four fish by now, I took my time walking down the trail, trying with each step to leave the world behind."

    "I glanced at the sky which I had forgotten about since the world had become no higher than a bush."

    Connections in this part are Norman asking questions to Paul when Paul doesn't want to hear them and Norman just digs himself in a hole.

10-10-03

Quotes

    "Fishing is a world created apart from all others, and inside it are special worlds of their own-- one is fishing for big fish in small water where there is not enough world and water to accommodate a fish and a fisherman, and the willows on the side of the creek are all against the fisherman."

    "When fish start jumping like this, something is happening to the weather."

10-13-03 pg. 60-75

Quotes

    "Fishermen also think of the river as having been made with them partly in mind, and they talk of it as if it had been."

    "I had long ago learned, sometimes to my sorrow, that Scottish piety is accompanied by a complete foreknowledge of sin. That's what we mean by original sin--we don't have to do it to know about it."

Don't lay out naked in the sun for a long time, you'll get burned!

10-14-03 pg. 75-90

Quotes

    " "Let's never get out of touch with each other," Jessie said. And we never have, although her death has come between us."

    "To my father, the highest commandment was to do whatever his sons wanted him to do, especially if it meant to go fishing."

10-15-03 pg. 91-104

Quotes

    "This was the last fish we were ever to see Paul catch. My father and I talked about this moment several times later, and whatever our other feelings, we always felt it fitting that, when we saw him catch his last fish, we never saw the fish but only the artistry of the fisherman."

    "As we were packing our tackle and fish in the car, Paul repeated, "Just give me three more years." At that time, I was surprised at the repetition, but later I realized that the river somewhere, sometime, must have told me, too, that he would receive no such gift."

    " "I've said I've told you all I know. If you push me far enough, all I really know is that he was a find fisherman." 

"You know more than that," my father said. "He was beautiful."

"Yes," I said, "He was beautiful. He should have been--you taught him." "

    "Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it."

Connections in this part of the book and life are try to see and understand the people you are with all the time when you are young, so that if they do die early, you know you understood them while they were here on earth.