Midges – Quotes

As much as anything,

As much as anything, the anglers will clue you in to the midge hatch. You will see them hunched over in concentration like herons. The better ones will be in as close as they can get to the dimpling trout. What you’ll notice is the rythmic flicking of casts toward a porpoising trout and the … Read more

As an example of

As an example of just how useless these philosophers are for any practice in life there is Socrates himself, the one and only wise man, according to the Delphic Oracle. Whenever he tried to do anything in public he had to break off amid general laughter. While he was philosophizing about clouds and ideas, measuring … Read more

The midge’s wing beats

The midge’s wing beats to and fro A thousand times ere one can utter O. Coventry Patmore

I am attached to

I am attached to the west coast of Scotland – it’s gorgeous to look at and challenging. You have to contend with the possibility of being blown away or rained on. And in the summer months you can be eaten alive by midges. Clive Anderson

I suppose if there

I suppose if there were a part of the world in which mastodon still lived, somebody would design a new gun, and men, in their eternal impudence, would hunt mastodon as they now hunt elephant. Impudence seems to be the word. At least David and Goliath were of the same species, but, to an elephant, … Read more

Don’t you find it

Don’t you find it rather heavy, to have everything really in front of you – all the people who are going to matter, whom you haven’t met yet, all the choices you are going to have to make, everything you might achieve, and all the possible failures – unreal now? The future flaps round my head like a cloud of midges.
A. S. Byatt