Spring Breakup - Ice on the Clark Fork River, Missoula, Montana

“It is with rivers as it is with people: The greatest are not always the most agreeable nor the best to live with.” — (Henry van Dyke, (1852-1933), Little Rivers: A Book of Essays in Profitable Idleness

Sheltering Friends - Homeward Mountains, Near Missoula, Montana

“Don't be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.”  -Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

Hometown Landmarks - Clark Fork River, Missoula, Montana

“Rivers know this: There is no hurry, we shall get there some day.” — A.A. Milne (1882-1956), Winnie the Pooh

Morning Sunshine - Yellowstone River, Livingston, Montana

“Rivers are the primal highways of life. From the crack of time, they had borne men's dreams, and in their lovely rush to elsewhere, fed our wanderlust, mimicked our arteries, and charmed our imaginations in a way the static pond or vast and savage ocean never could. “ — Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids from Hot Climates

Source: https://www.rivers.gov/quotations.phpa

Breaking Through Frozen - Rattlesnake Creek, Missoula, Montana

”They have no idea that sadness can freeze more than just your joy and break more than your heart.”

 -from The Letter: An unforgettable novel of love, war and secret kept for generations by Ruth Saberton

Promising Winter Hollyhock - White Sulphur Springs, Montana

“I used to feel sad on New Year's Eve, clinging to the old year, never wanting it to be over. I avoided good-byes for the same reason, clinging to what was, simply because it was known, whereas the future was unknown and therefore to be worried over. How much fear has controlled my life . No longer!

... I pat my firm thighs and promise to banish further negative thinking...I raise my glass to being big, beautiful, feminine, and forever changing, promising to work with my bones and flesh. After all , bones make new bones if they are exercised, skin sheds itself to make room for fresh flesh, muscles untangle and restore their strength. I truly have rejoined the human race.”

  -Joan Anderson, in A Year By The Sea, pages 90-91

Small Facts - Grant Creek, Missoula, Montana

“Beside the grand history of the glaciers and their own, the mountain streams sing the history of every avalanche or earthquake and of snow, all easily recognized by the human ear, and every word evoked by the falling leaf and drinking deer, beside a thousand other facts so small and spoken by the stream in so low a voice the human ear cannot hear them. “ — John Muir (1838-914, Mountain Thoughts

Snow-capped Clarity - Missoula, Montana

“It is a fault to wish to be understood before we have made ourselves clear to ourselves.”
—  Simone Weil (1909-1943)

 (Thank you,  Tim Ferriss for this hmmmm-provoking gem.)