Quotes from Joseph Monninger

I once owned a home on an island off the coast of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

I've never liked the moment of seeing something beautiful - a sunset, a moose, an elephant - and then raising a camera and trying to capture it for some future moment. That's always struck me as strange.

Bears are extremely human, even down to their footprints. But I am also a fly fisherman, so I have fished beside brown bears in Alaska and was once charged by a black bear. I love bears.

I actually believe in simplicity as a way of life. My wife and I are considering moving into a yurt!

As someone who has moved around a fair amount, I wondered what it would be like to stay rooted to one place, one community.

I live in a beautiful part of the world - western New Hampshire along the Baker River - and my family and I spend a lot of time outdoors.

These stars will be gone one day for you. They will be for me, too. The Raven promises me I will turn back to sticks and dirt, and I believe him. But until then I am a human being and that is something to be. I stand on my feet and I look at the stars and I feel the seasons. If you work at it long enough, I promise you that will be enough for you...This world, every day, it's enough.

We read not to escape, but to go deeper into life.

In a universe, on a continent, in a country, in a state, in a county, on a river, in a small yellow boat,' I said. 'That's what Mary used to say to explain the odds of us meeting. And you have to be born in roughly the same period. Those are the odds. And probably you need to speak the same language.'-- Cobb

My father called me an enthusiast. I am enthusiastic about things. A lot of things.' - Mary

Don't spit into heaven... Don't tell the gods your plans; they'll only laugh.

We are alive, the wolves said. And the world is beautiful.

It's the Thanksgiving rule. That's another life tip." "Explain," I said. "Oh, Thanksgiving is this massive meal that usually takes someone about three days to prepare, and then everyone sits down and eats it in about fifteen minutes. The trick is to learn to take your time with Thanksgiving. You have to get everyone to promise that they won't get up for anything for at least an hour. Maybe two.

What we find in a dog is what we bring to a dog.

He is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him: he is indeed a horse; and all other jades you may call beasts

30-percent incline

You see how things might be and you aren't afraid to risk something to have it.

He wondered if most men didn't reach toward love faster than they truly understood it.

I liked her smile. And I knew that I had fallen in love. I knew that I wanted to run rivers with her, and camp, and go out to dinner and dance, and meet people with her by my side, and establish routines, and hear every knock-knock joke in her repertoire. I knew that. The knowledge came as simply as clean linen.

A man always hears the first time," Julie said, smiling at us, "but he makes you tell him twice. Especially if he's your husband. Men have their tricks. Don't ever think they don't.

I've taken a mail packet boat along the southern Newfoundland coast and spent some time on St. Pierre and Miquelon watching the seal colonies. I like pine trees. I like cold rivers.

When a trout rises to a fly, it does not swim as much as tilt its fins and jet skyward.

I'd love to do more woodworking, and maybe will someday, but I wasn't brought up in that environment. My wife is better at woodworking, and most around-the-house skills, than I am.

Biologists have determined brookies to be indicators of ecosystem health and have been recently campaigning to get the word out. If brookies inhabit a stream, the odds are good that the waterway is in excellent condition.