Quotes from Steven Rinella

At once [the buffalo] is a symbol of the tenacity of wilderness and the destruction of wilderness; it's a symbol of Native American culture and the death of Native American culture; it's a symbol of the strength and vitality of America and the pettiness and greed of America; it represents a frontier both forgotten and remembered; it stands for freedom and captivity, extinction and salvation.

There's a fine line between being practical and being a candyass, which is a word that my father used to describe someone whom he considered to be the opposite of tough. ... Because I'm very afraid of becoming a candyass, I'll sometimes do things that I know to be impractical just so I don't have to worry about being a candyass.

On the most basic level, agriculture leads to more food; more food leads to more people; more people leads to professional specialization; professional specialization leads to invention; invention leads to the development of greater weapons; the development of greater weapons leads to conquest. What this meant, over the centuries, is that agricultural people basically kicked the shit out of hunters.

LSSU] was the kind of school where students had a lot of pride. Not the raucous strain of sports pride... And not academic pride... It was more of a geographical pride. Kids were proud to live in that tough wilderness setting, and the best way to prove your mettle was through achievements in the wild.

One August day a few years back, my friend Dan Bogan and I spent a whole day up on a hill that was shaped like a woman's chest. We were hiding in the cleavage, out of sight.

When I was done plucking the birds, the blood and the scattering of white feathers gave my campsite the appearance of a pillow fight gone horribly wrong.

The Dilligas is perhaps the ugliest boat I've ever been on... Dilligas is an acronym: Do I Look Like I Give A Shit.

Driving around the West, I was like an illiterate man staring into a book; he doesn't understand what exactly he's seeing, but he damn sure knows it's important

Every schoolboy knows that the Indians used every part of the buffalo, which is true. But they did not use every part of every buffalo.

Indians only needed so many implements and decorations. If a tribe drove three hundred buffalo over a cliff, they wouldn't feel obligated to make twenty-four hundred buffalo-hoof spoons and six hundred buffalo-horn charcoal carriers. Rather, they might just take the meat and hides from the best-looking female buffalo, those that weren't too smashed up or buried under other buffalo. That might be all they touched. After all, their time and energy had value, just as ours does.

Growing up, I considered [my dad] to be an exemplar of fidelity. For instance, he didn't believe in removing his wedding ring, no matter what. Whenever he washed his hands, he would thoroughly scrub his right hand, then align his two ring fingers tip to tip, slide the ring from his left ring finger to his right, then scrub his left hand.

true hunter recognizes that experiences are the ultimate hunting trophies; he takes pride in walking the ancient and noble pathway that was laid down by his forebearers; and even when he returns from a hunt cold, wet, and empty-handed, he does so with a full heart.

In the first half of the twentieth century, the conservationist Aldo Leopold had already warned of two "spiritual dangers" that come from not owning a farm: "One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.

Fear prevents engagement; lack of engagement builds into a habit of avoidance; and pretty soon it's just your family stuck inside four walls, where perhaps the biggest obstacle of all—technology—abounds. Even if you recognize that it might not be good for them to be in their

Fear prevents engagement; lack of engagement builds into a habit of avoidance; and pretty soon it's just your family stuck inside four walls, where perhaps the biggest obstacle of all—technology—abounds.

our kids need to understand that they are not above, outside, or apart from their physical environment—they are completely intertwined with it, and it with them.

The whining and fighting during that two-hour car ride to the lake may make you want to bag the whole trip. No matter what, though, stick with it. I have faith that you'll eventually find, or reconnect with, the addictive qualities of nature.

Try to remember that they're the reason you're out there—that their experience comes first. Adjust your pace to hike with them and set goals together for reaching certain landmarks or distances.

Indians in Kentucky used a 225-mile path between Big Bone Lick and Maysville that they called, simply, "the Buffalo Path.

hide-hunting outfit might travel with