The River Why Quotes
It is a doubt if my body is flesh or fish," he sang in his grief; "hapless the woman who loves me…
"The normal fetus... is an awkward alien in the liquid environment—a groping land creature confused by its immersion and anxious to escape."
"One of his favorite articles was published in a 1954 Field and Stream under the title 'Gus the Fish.'"
"The fisherman’s is an inexplicably privileged place in this hard world."
"He is, to my chagrin, the one person in the world who calls me by my legal name, Augustine."
"My father’s name is Henning Hale-Orviston."
"My mother considers herself something of an authority on human fetuses."
"Having harbored two sons in the waters of her womb, my mother considers herself something of an authority on human fetuses."
"To his greater chagrin, Ma calls him 'Hen.'"
"A fisherman stands on a projecting rock with a long rod, throws in ground bait to attract little fishes, drops in hook and line… and at last gets a bite and whips him out gasping…"
"I have been in the buttery... In the land of the Trinity… It is not known what is the nature of its meat and its fish…"
"The pleasant’st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream, And greedily devour the treacherous bait…"
"If ever a man’s wife was his nemesis, his antagonist, his antithesis, Ma is H2O’s."
"Under the Orviston roof it’s Ma who calls the shots."
"Most men forget to pay their praises… to Him that made that sun and us, and still protects us, and gives us flowers and showers, and stomachs and meat, and content and leisure to go a-fishing in."
"When I would beget content, and increase confidence in the power, and wisdom, and providence of Almighty God, I will walk the meadows by some gliding stream."
"I am ashamed to report that back in ’53 my parents were not as scrupulous (nor as affluent) as they are now."
"The Bible is good in some places, dull as a seed catalogue in others, and bloody and horrible in others besides that."
"I have been much pleased to walk quietly by a brook with a little stick in my hand."
"Water is to the structural analyst what Waterloo was to Bonaparte."
"Human beings were invented by water as a device for transporting itself from one place to another."
"If water had the same vaporization point as n-heptane, we would have to consume seven times as much of it to keep from stewing in our juices on a summer’s day."
"A native is a man or creature or plant indigenous to a limited geographical area."
"I want to walk around in the woods, fish and drink."
"Water will never leave earth and whiskey is good for the brain."
"What else am I supposed to do in these last days but fish and drink?"
"A fish maintains its silent, orderly existence within the confines of its tank."
"Glorious was life when standing at my fishing hole on the ice. But did standing at my fishing hole ever bring me joy? No!"
"Life is a lot of green crap inexorably turning gray."
"Everything that gots a shadow gots a Garden Angel."
"The Queen is everywhere, always, all at once."
"See the Queen before you’re ready, you die."
"We trade worlds with our twin: we go there and our twin comes here."
"Some things don’t look like what it is."
"Every person thinks their Angel is just their shadow."
"When I awoke, the first thing I saw was the morning star, bluegreen and brilliant between black silhouettes of cedars."
"Then it struck me: trees, mists, mountains, flowers, fish, stones, and streams—all these must be the robes saving my eyes from the Queen’s searing light; yet they refracted and colored that light, and it shone dimly through, making them beautiful."
"The forests gave them incomes, homes, furniture, baseball bats, tool handles—and in return they treated it like an enemy in a bitter war."
"Ma is a rabid hater of dams and did her best to instill that hate in me."
"Ma shook her head the way that meant yes."
"How could loggers or their employers or whoever the hell was responsible be oblivious to such a sight?"
"The only consolation was that my Fishing Log had gone the way of the Wolf Clansmen—ashes now."
"The water noises came not from my head, but from the Tamanawis."
"Eddy, like the swirlzles in riverd wattle?"
"The Spirit Father business was getting to me, too."
"No, you shouldn’t. The dog is Descartes."
"Descartes’s immediate goal is humanity as surely as ours is Divinity."
"All there is to thinking is seeing something noticeable which makes you see something you weren’t noticing which makes you see something that isn’t even visible."
"Every soul that reaches God enters the majestic secret, turns from a snake into a fish, leaves solid earth, dives into the sea, swims in the river of Paradise."
"I’m not sane, Gus. I believe in the rivers of living water; I believe our souls swim in that water; I believe Jesus and Buddha and Krishna are the savour in that water."
"I’d like to bolt this insignificant tidbit in one massive inhalation, but Master has expressed displeasure at such sensible eating habits."
"Next incarnation, God willing, I’ll have hands and won’t require human assistance with doorknobs and such hindrances."
"The fishermen that walk upon the beach appear like mice."
"I refuse to rise to the tempting fly of the message I was sent, feathered with bright poetry."
"Well, we learned yesterday afternoon that there’s nothing to the old saw that says 'You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.'"
"The healthy ones reminded me of eight-pound test and the ones who wore wigs, once you pulled the wig off, reminded me of 5x tippet or algae or something."
"After a day spent casting hookless flies into mirage creeks among the arid dunes, one begins to sense an order of things imperceptible to those whose minds are unaffected by extreme heat and dehydration."
"Fish don’t understand science. But they worship magic!"
"You see, Dutch, fish live in water. If one understands water one understands fish."
"The first fly I make / In the Name of Christ, / King of the Elements, / The poor man shall have for his need."
"It’s a damned tough business sitting around trying to force yourself to force God to forcefeed you a revelation or vision or spiritual assistant or something."
"The rivery intricacy from source to sea, the life and lives the water supports and contains, the infinity of facets it welds into one, all of this is not asked, but stated."
"You keep doing it as at last the sky turns a dull dead gray and no warmth comes with the day and the drizzle never stops."
"The source of all these sources was the clouds, and the source of clouds was the sea, so the river running past my cabin literally did have its source 'everywhere,' at least everywhere that water has ever visited."
"Never having seen these two together, I’d wondered how they hit it off."
"It seems he and Hemingway sat side by side at the lunch table, nodded wordlessly, and proceeded to ignore each other."
"Arjuna’s glower darkened. He said, 'You’ll be the girl, if ya keep eatin’ meat!'"
"Arjuna shot him a condescending smile. Smug as a Witless, he made this pronouncement: 'My dad says that meat gots hornmones in it that turns men into women, Girl!'"
"That’s when Pop cuts their balls off," said Hemingway offhandedly."
"They sighed and sat at the lunch table there, each kind of admiring the other’s rugged, cocksure style."
"Eddy didn’t smile. She looked me in the eye and asked, 'What made you think I’d ever come for them?'"
"But if you knew how many fishermen I’ve seen on how many rivers fishing how many lamebrained or boring or seen-one-seen-’em-all ways and then to see you up there fishing like that!"
"You can’t explain poison-oak itch to somebody who’s never had it."
"I don’t know where I caught it first. I suspect maybe I had it all my life but didn’t know it—maybe because of all that cool trout-water purling over it, lulling it, numbing it, hypnotizing me into not feeling it."
"I began to feel the old place in my heart. I began to blink and swallow. 'Where’s Ma?' I croaked."
"The one sure thing you can say about love is that there isn’t much you can say about it."
"That’s how he kidded. That was fine with God. He’d send Hu a right leg ten inches shorter than the left to show He was listening."
"He makes me laugh and laugh! That’s what a Friend is for!"