Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers Quotes

“Fishing has never lent itself to the kind of satisfaction on demand that technology has trained us to expect for the simple reason that fish don’t want to be caught and go to great lengths to avoid it. That’s why it doesn’t make sense to take up fly-fishing for the bragging rights alone; it’s better to see it as an acquired taste that reintroduces the chaos of uncertainty back into our well-regulated lives. Fishermen who care too much about the size and numbers of fish they catch are insufferable on good days and as harried as overworked executives on slow ones. On the other hand, it’s possible to be a happy angler who doesn’t catch many fish; it’s just that no one will ever say you’re good at it.”
― John Gierach, Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers

“I noticed that at some point the strategy of hiking farther and the reality of getting older began to diverge in inconvenient ways. It sneaks up on you, but eventually a mile at altitude begins to feel like a mile and a half, then two miles, and so on.”
― John Gierach, Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers

“Once the runoff comes down in a normal year, the online readout from the gauging stations forms a gentle wave: up slightly at night as the day’s snowmelt reaches the gauge and down slightly during the day to reflect the cold, high-elevation nights. It looks like the slow heartbeat of a large animal at rest, disturbed only by the occasional thunderstorm.”
― John Gierach, Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers

“but the rule here, as it is in Montana, is that you can fish through any private property as long as you stay in the streambed.”
― John Gierach, Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers

“Sure, sometimes a non-angler will ask how I can stand to hook, play, and land these increasingly rare fish that I claim to love and respect so much, adding to their already heavy burden of survival. To that I can only say, “It’s because life is more complicated than either of us could ever imagine.” 21.”
― John Gierach, Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers

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― John Gierach, Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers

“I understand that not everyone is so lucky; a precious few have it easier, but most have it harder. I might once have said that you make that kind of luck for yourself, and in some ways you do, but it’s just as often true that people end up where they are through no fault of their own and are then faced with making the best of it.”
― John Gierach, Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers