Norman Maclean - Young Men and Fire

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Unless we are willing to escape into sentimentality or fantasy, often the best we can do with catastrophes, even our own, is to find out exactly what happened and restore some of the missing parts.

Norman Maclean
It is very important to a lot of people to make unmistakably clear to themselves and to the universe that they love the universe but are not intimidated by it and will not be shaken by it, no matter what it has in store. Moreover, they demand something from themselves early in life that can be taken ever after as a demonstration of this abiding feeling.

Norman Maclean
In the Gates of the Mountains there have been many blowups. Now there are many rattlesnakes and nothing more fragile than mountain goats, themselves tougher than the mountains they disdain, although at a distance they are white wings of butterflies floating up and down and sideways across the faces of fragments of arches and cliffs, touching but never becoming attached to them.

Norman Maclean
As I get considerably beyond the biblical allotment of three score years and ten, I feel with increasing intensity that I can express my gratitude for still being around on the oxygen-side of the earth's crust only by not standing pat on what I have hitherto known and loved. While oxygen lasts, there are still new things to love, especially if compassion is a form of love.

Norman Maclean
A mystery of the universe is how it has managed to survive with so much volunteer help.

Norman Maclean
Probably most catastrophes end this way without an ending, the dead not even knowing how they died..., those who loved them forever questioning "this unnecessary death," and the rest of us tiring of this inconsolable catastrophe and turning to the next one.

Norman Maclean
Time was just a hangover from the past with no present meaning.

Norman Maclean
The nearest anyone can come to finding himself at any given age is to find a story that somehow tells him about himself.

Norman Maclean