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.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of continuous gratitude and exploration throughout life, especially as one ages.
In this quote, Norman Maclean reflects on his longevity and expresses a deep appreciation for life, suggesting that true gratitude comes from not only being alive but also from actively seeking new experiences and love. He implies that as long as one breathes, there is always potential for new discoveries and forms of love, particularly highlighting the significance of compassion as a vital aspect of our connections to others.
In practice
In a speech about aging, one could use this quote to illustrate the value of life experiences.
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.
Ahead and to the west was our ranger station - and the mountains of Idaho, poems of geology stretching beyond any boundaries and seemingly even beyond the world.
Poets talk about "spots of time", but it is really the fishermen who experience eternity compressed into a moment. No one can tell what a spot of time is until suddenly the whole world is a fish and the fish is gone.
At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear. It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us. You can love completely without complete understanding.
One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful even if it is only a floating ash.
One great thing about fly fishing is that after a while nothing exists of the world but thoughts about fly fishing
Paper has more patience than people.
I'm never going to starve myself for a part. I don't want little girls to be like, 'Oh, I want to look like Katniss, so I'm going to skip dinner.' That's something I was really conscious of during training, when you're trying to get your body to look exactly right. I was trying to get my body to look fit and strong-not thin and underfed.
My mother said, "Money is a great slave but a horrible master." It was her version of a French proverb.
A Christian's freedom from anxiety is not due to some guaranteed freedom from trouble, but to the folly of worry and especially to the confidence that God is our Father, that even permitted suffering is within the orbit of His care.
We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.
The key is the ability, whether innate or conditioned, to find the other side of the rote, the picayune, the meaningless, the repetitive, the pointlessly complex. To be, in a word, unborable... It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.
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