Favorite quotes by outdoor writers, gun writers, conservationists, naturalists, ect.

[geetar]

One by Elmer Keith, after being fired by "The American Rifleman" and his wife asking, "What are we going to do on only $150 a month?". Elmer replied, "I'm going to Africa."
Another by Pat McMannus (who may not be a "gun writter", but...). "Real ponies don't go oink."

Pat McManus was hilarious. Also I think Africa sounds good.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Anyone who can quote Pat McManus from memory is welcome in my camp.

 

[Tradewind]

Anyone who can quote Pat McManus from memory is welcome in my camp.

"Back when I was a kid, parents never cluttered up a youngster's mind with explanations."

 

[Tradewind]

or
"Tell her that a gun collection is like wilderness. Even though we don't use all of it all the time, we need to know that it's there "

 

[Tradewind]

And why I rent hunting dogs:
"I have gone through a number of hunting dogs, or they have gone through me, or at least my bank account, and I have come to the conclusion that the perfect hunting dog is one that belongs to somebody else."
P.McManus

 

[pre6422hornet]

"If your ancestors weren't proficient at hunting, you wouldn't be here"

Donnie Vincent

 

[MTelkHuntress]

“In a civilized and cultivated country wild animals only continue to exist at all when preserved by sportsmen. the excellent people who protest against all hunting, and consider sportsmen as enemies of wild life, are ignorant of the fact that in reality the genuine sportsman is by all odds the most important factor in keeping the larger and more valuable wild creatures from total extermination.” Teddy Roosevelt

Still my favorite Teddy Roosevelt quote: "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose"

"In the end, we conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught." -Jim Posewitz

"When I was young, a teacher had forbidden me to say 'more perfect' because she said if a thing is perfect it can't be more so. But by now I had seen enough of life to have regained my confidence in it." - Norman Maclean

 

[MinnesotaHunter]

Also this nugget that often makes me crack up randomly from @MinnesotaHunter

"When we're done with it they're going to call it the Bigger Hole."

I forgot I said that....I must have been drinking....

 

[2rocky]

a modern one that I often share is from Steve Rinella. "There are two types of fun. Things that are fun to do and things that are fun to remember." The two are seldom the same things....

 

[Irrelevant]

I too am a Stegner junky.
"Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last silence."

"The brook would lose its song if we removed the rocks"

"I gave my heart to the mountains the minutes I stood beside this river with its spray in my face and watched it thunder into foam, smooth to green glass over sunken rocks, shatter to foam again. I was fascinated by how it sped by and yet was always there; its roar shook both the earth and me"

 

[morley.tyler]

I live in a major metro area, so I relate to this excerpt from Wallace Stegner very strongly -

"Still in waders, with the string of ducks across his shoulders, he stood hesitating on the sidewalk in the cold November wind...Today, all day, he had been alive; now he was back ready to be dead again."

Man- Do I feel that. That is great. I love where I live, but man, it’s hard to be alive on certain days.

 

[Irrelevant]

Harrison is also a fav

"Death steals everything except our stories"
"Sometimes and only answer to death is lunch"
"Baring love I'll take my life in large doses alone - river, forests, fish, grouse, mountains. Dogs."

 

[geetar]

a modern one that I often share is from Steve Rinella. "There are two types of fun. Things that are fun to do and things that are fun to remember." The two are seldom the same things....

My signature line is from Steve Rinella’s brother Danny. On the latest season of Meat Eater Steve and Danny went Dall sheep hunting in Alaska and upon finding a beautiful ram and not being able to complete the stalk due to time and distance and having to watch as the ram looked at them and walked away Danny looks at Steve and says “ I’m barely even disappointed “ with a smile on his face.

 

[Gerald Martin]

I am comparing the quoteables of my hunting partners with the quotes of noted authors.

I am concluding that my hunting partners say much more memorable things just not as eloquently.

 

[geetar]

Maybe stalking the woods is as vital to the human condition as playing music or putting words to paper. Maybe hunting has as much of a claim on our civilized selves as anything else. After all, the earliest forms of representational art reflect hunters and prey. While the arts were making us spiritually viable, hunting did the heavy lifting of not only keeping us alive, but inspiring us. To abhor hunting is to hate the place from which you came, which is akin to hating yourself in some distant, abstract way. - Steven Rinella

 

[Tradewind]

I am comparing the quoteables of my hunting partners with the quotes of noted authors.

I am concluding that my hunting partners say much more memorable things just not as eloquently.

Well let's hear it. I'm willing to bet it is at least as colorful

 

[Panda Bear]

since I work in wildlife conservation I always liked this one

A duck call in the hands of the unskilled is one of conversations greatest assets

 

[Gary]

"Back when I was a kid, parents never cluttered up a youngster's mind with explanations."

"Because I said so.", may not be a literary quote, but probably one ingrained to most kids.

 

[beagle001]

I love this one from Aldo

 

[Dinkshooter]

There was a big red enamel pot on the stove; and I ladled antelope chili into two bowls for my little boy and me. He said, "It better not be too hot."

"It isn't."

"What's your news?" he asked.

"Grandpa's dead."

"Which grandpa?" he asked. I told him it was Big Grandpa, my father. He kept on eating. "He died last night."

He said, "I know what I want for Christmas."

"What's that ?"

"I want Big Grandpa back."