Gierach Quotes & Sayings

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

Lawyers are like nuclear weapons. By all rights they shouldn't exist, but if some people have them, then you'd better have one, too, just in case. — John Gierach

Two moral forces shaped how we think and live in this shining twentieth century: the Virgin, and the Dynamo. The Dynamo represents the desire to know; the Virgin represents the freedom not to know.

What's the Virgin made of? Things that we think are silly, mostly. The peculiar logic of dreams, or the inexplicable stirring we feel when we look on someone that's beautiful not in a way that we all agree is beautiful, but the unique way in which a single person is. The Virgin is faith and mysticism; miracle and instinct; art and randomness.

On the other hand, you have the Dynamo: the unstoppable engine. It finds the logic behind a seeming miracle and explains that miracle away; it finds the order in randomness to which we're blind; it takes the caliper to a young woman's head and quantifies her beauty in terms of pleasing mathematical ratios; it accounts for the secret stirring you felt by discoursing at length on the nervous systems of animals. — Dexter Palmer

From my own experience I can say that a bad back makes you hike slower, stove-up knees keep you from wading confidently, tendinitis of the elbows buggers your casting, and a dose of giardia can send you dashing to the bushes fifteen times in an afternoon, but although none of this is fun, it's discernibly better than not fishing. — John Gierach

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

They say you forget your troubles on a trout stream, but that's not quite it. What happens is that you begin to see where your troubles fit into the grand scheme of things, and suddenly they're just not such a big deal anymore. — John Gierach

Alas! In vain historians pry and probe: The same wind blows, and in the same live robe Truth bends her head to fingers curved cupwise; And with a woman's smile and a child's care Examines something she is holding there Concealed by her own shoulder from our eyes. — Vladimir Nabokov

We are all damaged. We have all been hurt. We have all had to learn painful lessons. We are all recovering from some mistake, loss, betrayal, abuse, injustice or misfortune. All of life is a process of recovery that never ends. We each must find ways to accept and move through the pain and to pick ourselves back up. For each pang of grief, depression, doubt or despair there is an inverse toward renewal coming to you in time. Each tragedy is an announcement that some good will indeed come in time. Be patient with yourself. — Bryant McGill

Fly-fishing is solitary, contemplative, misanthropic, scientific in some hands, poetic in others, and laced with conflicting aesthetic considerations. It's not even clear if catching fish is actually the point. — John Gierach

Accurately recalling an entire day of fishing is like trying to push smoke back down a chimney, so you settle on these specific moments. — John Gierach

We do have to think seriously about conservation now, although it is chilling to realize there are catch-and-release fishermen alive today who don't know how to clean and fry a fish. — John Gierach

frustration at myself in the mirror. Damn my hair - it just won't behave, and damn Katherine Kavanagh for being ill and subjecting me to this ordeal. I should be studying for my final exams, which are next week, yet here I am trying to brush my hair into submission. I must not sleep with it wet. I must not sleep with it wet. Reciting this mantra several times, I attempt, once more, to bring it under control with the brush. I roll my eyes in exasperation and gaze at the pale, brown-haired girl with blue eyes too big for her face staring back at me, and give up. My only option is to restrain my wayward — E.L. James

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

God has given everything to fulfill our need,
But he has nothing to satisfy our greed. — MIKAIL ALI

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. — John Gierach

I believe it has changed so much because of the impact you can have from that position. You are so involved in the game from both a pass and a run standpoint. Anyone that can have an impact on a game like that is going to be held to high standards. You have guys like Ed Reed and Troy Polamalu who make big-time plays which can change the outcome of the game. — Eric Berry

Successful trout fishing isn't a matter of brute force or even persistence, but something more like infiltration. — John Gierach

We don't read the Bible, the Bible reads us. — David Paul Kikrpatrick

Something to think about: If you fish the wrong fly long and hard enough, it will sooner or later become the right fly. — John Gierach

I know I'm a long way from greatness, but I am beginning to come at it in my own way. I can go through the basic motions pretty well, don't rely quite as religiously on specific fly patterns as I once did, have worked out ways of compensating for some of my most egregious weaknesses and have come to count heavily on timing because it's a hell of a lot easier to catch fish when the fish are biting. — John Gierach

Believe in yourself, don't let people put you in a box and stay positive. — Maejor

I like to do every operation the same way on each fly. In the course of tying a batch of flies, I might get an idea on how to do something differently, but try to save it to try out later rather than break my comfortable rhythm. I don't worry about forgetting it. In my experience good ideas stay with you, while bad ones go back to where they came from, and good riddance. — John Gierach

Sure, it was your idea and your fly, but he caught the big fish. Remember, fairness is a human idea largely unknown in nature. — John Gierach

We are no longer blessed with innocence, nor do we deserve to be. Paradise may have been lost, but paradise is a bad bargain. It costs too much. It conceals serpents, and is littered with graves. — Susan Rivers

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. — John Gierach

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. — John Gierach

Flyfishing does have its social aspects - on some of our crowded trout streams it can get too social - but esentially it's a solitary, contemplative sport. People are left alone with themselves in beautiful surroundings to try to accomplish something that seems to have genuine value. — John Gierach

Shake yourself free from the manikin you create out of a false interpretation of what you do and what you feel, and you'll at once see that the manikin you make yourself is nothing at all like what you really are or what you really can be! — Luigi Pirandello

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

To start blindly with a statement is a sign of arrogance and narrow-mindedness, and will lead to conflict. To start blindly with a question is a sign of uncertainty and honesty, and will lead to wisdom. — Scott Watson

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. — John Gierach

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. — John Gierach

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. — John Gierach

I've been working on 'The New York Times' crossword puzzle on the subway. I can make it until about Wednesday. — Eddie Kaye Thomas

All the while I was trying to figure out if I knew anyone who had married and stayed in love for decades. I thought about Daddy and Momma. Daddy had loved Momma with a great passion. Everyone knew that. But, why? I knew why! The ugly truth was that he loved her because of how she made him feel, not because of who she was. Was that the nature of a man's love for a woman? Not what you bring to the table, but how you make him feel? I was drinking a cup — Dorothea Benton Frank

Trout aren't naturally as selective as they've become in crowded tailwaters - they've been trained to be like that by too much fishing pressure. I've seen tailwater fish that are so hysterical they'll refuse naturals. You wonder how they get enough to eat. — John Gierach

Fishing in rainy conditions may make fisherman seem crazy to the great mass of unimaginative people, but then few fishermen care what they think — John Gierach

I don't really know how to tie a fly until I've tied a hundred dozen of them. — John Gierach

Be aware, and wine becomes water. Be aware - sex becomes love. Be aware - love becomes prayer. Be aware - prayer becomes meditation. Simply one thing has to be remembered: do whatsoever you like, but do it with full consciousness, and then you will not go astray. — Rajneesh

Nothing is more frightening than a monster that cares about his health, cause you know he'll be around for a while. — Geoff Ramsey

Fish sense, applied in the field, is what the old Zen masters would call enlightenment: simply the ability to see what's right there in front of you without having to sift through a lot of thoughts and theories and, yes, expensive fishing tackle. — John Gierach

The things fishermen know about trout aren't facts but articles of faith. — John Gierach

I necessarily fear change except that it's so seldom for the better. It's just that I can live with any number of things going straight to hell as long as these streams continue to hold up. If this amounts to living in a fool's paradise, don't waste your time trying to explain that to the fool. — John Gierach

Really, the only thing a psychiatrist can do that a good (fishing) guide can't is write prescriptions. — John Gierach