I had as yet no notion that life every now and then becomes literature - not for long, of course, but long enough to be what we best remember, and often enough so that we eventually come to mean by life are those moments when life, instead of going sideways, backwards, forwards, or nowhere at all, lines out straight, tense, and inevitable, with a complication, climax, and, given some luck, a purgation, as if life had been made and not happened.

I had as yet no notion that life every now and then becomes literature - not for long, of course, but long enough to be what we best remember, and often enough so that we eventually come to mean by life are those moments when life, instead of going sideways, backwards, forwards, or nowhere at all, lines out straight, tense, and inevitable, with a complication, climax, and, given some luck, a purgation, as if life had been made and not happened.

—

Norman Maclean

USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky

Here’s to everyone living a better story in 2011.