"Scholars have long known that fishing eventually turns men into philosophers. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to buy decent tackle on a philosopher's salary." - Patrick F. McManus

"I've got three things I wanted most: a Churchill gun, a Hardy rod and a beautiful wife"
Macdonald Hastings, journalist and author, UK

"How do I define history?" asks Rudge, in The History Boys. "It's just one ******* thing after another" - Alan Bennett

"Thank god us atheist librans don't believe in astrology"  - I, Ronny

"My ambition is to have no ambition." - George Harrison

"A MANS GOT TO BELIEVE IN SOMETHING. I BELIEVE I'LL GO FISHING".... H.D THOREAU

Charley Saatchi - "I'm touched you think advertising copy is written from the heart"

All generalisations are dangerous, even this one - Alexandre Dumas

Ernest Dowson, 1896:

"They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream,
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream."

T. S. Eliot:

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
-------

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

T. S Eliot

Dr. Paley was ardently attached to this amusement; so much so that when the Bishop of Durham inquired of him when one of his most important works would be finished, he said, with great simplicity and good humour, 'My Lord, I shall work steadily at it when the fly-fishing season is over.'-SIR HUMPHRY DAVY: Salmonia.

An angler, like an Arab, regards hospitality as a religious duty. There seems to be something in the craft which inclines the heart to kindness and good-fellowship. Few anglers have I seen who were not pleasant to meet, and ready to do a good turn to a fellow-fisherman with the gift of a killing fly or the loan of a rod. - Henry van Dyke

Lady Mount Temple took a 14 lb trout from a pool on the River Test. It is recorded that she first caught an 11lb trout but returned it as 'it was not the one she was after'

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." Groucho Marx

"There are flowers everywhere, for those who bother to look" - Matisse

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. And remember the richest person is not the one who has the most, but the one who needs the least.

There is no such thing as a free mule

'15 minutes' has been replaced by eternity, provided you keep hitting the refresh button

Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one. - Voltaire


He who dies with most toys, wins.


I'm famed for my modesty!

A writer is someone for whom "writing is harder than it is for ordinary people."

Many men spend their lives in gazing at their own shadows, and so dwindle away into shadows thereof.
AUGUSTUS WILLIAM HARE English clergyman and writer (1792 - 1834)


"I thank you, and here is a hearty draught to you, and to all the brothers of the angle wheresoever they be," Izaak Walton

"Surely luck was with me today, Sir,
I left my heart in the stream,
My body is weary tonight, Sir,
But I have lived the stuff of my dreams."
E.R.Hewitt.

"I am not against golf, since I rather suspect it keeps armies of the unworthy from discovering trout." - Paul O'Neil

Q. After spending considerable time and money learning to tie flies, you collect a magnificent assortment of natural blue dun and other high-grade hackle, furs for dubbing, fine-wire hooks and other materials. Shortly after you install a fully-equipped fly-tying table in your den, your six-year-old son develops a violent allergy to feathers. What action do you take?

A. Frankly, you may not get full credit on this if you suggest putting the boy up for adoption. There are several good boarding schools that accept boys of this age, or you could send him to live with relatives. Adoption is a lengthy, bothersome process.

Ed Zern

"How can one find adequate words to describe the sweet feel of a rod that makes casting an esthetic delight, yet which adds little to one's ability to catch fish?" from "The Philosophical Fisherman" by Harold Blaisdell

I want fish from fishing, but I want a great big deal more than that, and getting it is not always dependent upon catching fish.

Roderick Haig-Brown

Build me a cabin in Utah,
Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout,
Have a bunch of kids who call me "Pa,"
That must be what it's all about,
That must be what it's all about.
Bob Dylan

There are three kinds of people in this world.
Those who can count and those who can't.

"It is you and clean, flowing water. It is you, inquisitive, in a wild world that is older than man, seeking greater understanding and finding not only an endless interest but a tranquility that comes, most of the time, to all nature´s wild creatures..." Lee Wulff

Bertolt Brecht - "Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are."

"May you live every day of your life."

"We play mind games with fish . . . . and lose . . (?)"

"All the tackle in the world won't give a fisherman a good time if he's not built for it."
Peterson

No one told me about lack of communication . . . .

"Rivers and the inhabitants of the watery elements are made for wise men to contemplate and for fools to pass by without consideration." - Izaac Walton

"If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing rods"


"Those that are dead are not dead, they're still living in my head" - Chris Martin

"The best time to go fishing is when you can get away". - Robert Traver

"Calling Fly Fishing a hobby is like calling Brain Surgery a job."

"There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot." - Steven Wright