"A story of three friends growing up in the sixties; of ten years filled with parties; weddings and uncertainties; and of the day we must all face..."

"Sam Melville - Bear"

"Dennis Aaberg - Slick"

"Jan-Michael Vincent - Matt Johnson"

"Narrator, Fly: Stay casual, Barlow."

"It's a surfing How Green Was My Valley the loss of an aristocracy, the end of an era, the passing of a more innocent time to a more corrupt and complex one-all growing up is the passing of innocence. It's based on the lives of three friends ten years ago. It's about their friendship, and the value of friendship. I don't think that kids today have the same kind of values that these people had then; I don't see movies being made about that kind of thing. This movie is about friendship: surfing is just the background. It's about love of a place, love of a time, love of your human contacts, and the loss of those things. It's the most personal film I'll probably ever make, and I figured I ought to do it now, before I get too far away from it. At least half the people who participated are dead now. The attrition rate among surfers is very high. A lot of them died in Vietnam and OD'd on dope."

"Bear: That's the lemon next to the pie."

"When I did Big Wednesday my first impressions were that I was going to do this coming-of-age story with Arthurian overtones about surfers that nobody took seriously, their troubled lives made larger than life by their experience with the sea. And that’s what the movie is. It never strayed from that. There was a lot of pressure to make it more like Animal House, but the movie has a huge following now because it did have loftier ambitions. It wasn’t just a story about somebody trying to ride the biggest wave or something. That’s not enough."

"Why don't you get back to Burbank!"

"He ain't no hodad Squidlips!"

"Three friends. Twelve Turbulent Years. And One Day We All Must Face."

"Mexico! Surfboards! Guns!"

"I don't want to be a star. Have my picture in magazines, have a bunch of kids looking up to me. I'm a drunk, Bear, a screw up. I just surf because it's good to go out and ride with your friends. I don't even have that anyone."

"A day will come that is like no other... and nothing that happens after will ever be the same."

"Reb Brown - Enforcer"

"Edie McClurg - Mrs. Burns"

"Joseph Gordon-Levitt - Young Norman"

"Emily Lloyd - Jessie Burns"

"Susan Traylor - Rawhide"

"[narrating] That was the only time we fought. Perhaps we wondered after which one of us was tougher. But if boyhood questions aren't answered before a certain point, they can't be raised again. So we returned to being gracious to one another, as the church well suggested."

"[narrating] Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise. 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 those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters."

"The world is full of bastards, the number increasing rapidly the further one gets from Missoula, Montana."

"Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding."

"The Burns family ran a general store in a one store town and still managed to do badly. They were Methodist, a denomination my father always referred to as Baptists who could read."

"[narrating] In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing."

"Craig Sheffer - Norman Maclean"

"[narrating] As time passed, my father struggled for more to hold on to, asking me again and again: had I told him everything. And finally I said to him, "maybe all I really know about Paul is that he was a fine fisherman." "You know more than that," my father said; "he was beautiful." And that was the last time we ever spoke of my brother's death."

"[narrating]My father looked at me for a long time, just looked at me and this was the last he and I ever said to me about Paul's death. Indirectly though, he was present in many of our conversations. Once for instance, my father asked me a series of questions that suddenly made me wonder if I understood even my father, whom I felt closer to than any man I have ever known, "you like to tell true stories" he asked and I answered, "Yes, I like to tell stories that are true." Then he asked, "after you have finished your true stories sometime, why don't you make up a story and the people to go with it, only then will you understand what happened and why. It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.""

"In my family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in Missoula, Montana where Indians still appeared out of the wilderness to walk the honky tonks and brothels of Front Street."

"[narrating] My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things - trout as well as eternal salvation - came by grace; and grace comes by art; and art does not come easy."

"Brad Pitt - Paul Maclean"

"Tom Skerritt - Reverend Maclean"

"Brenda Blethyn - Mrs. Maclean"

"Ray Spiker - Johnson"

"Helen Brown - Martha Lewis"

"Nancy Kulp - Mrs. Howells"

"Janice Carroll - Susan Lewis"

"Paul McVey - Sam Grafton"

"John Miller - Will Atkey, bartender"

"Ellen Corby - Mrs. Liz Torrey"

"Edith Evanson - Mrs. Shipstead"

"Elisha Cook, Jr. - Frank 'Stonewall' Torrey"