Garth Stein · 304 pages
Rating: (4.9K votes)
“There is no dishonor in losing the race,” Don said. “There is only dishonor in not racing because you are afraid to lose.”
“we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.”
“Yet for every peak there is a valley.”
“the race is long—to finish first, first you must finish.”
“We had come so close to greatness. We had smelled it, and it smelled like roast pig. Everybody likes the smell of roast pig. But what is worse, smelling the roast and not feasting, or not smelling the roast at all?”
“But I totally understood that what filled us with energy could be irritating to someone else,”
“To remember is to leave the present.”
“Here’s why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot speak, so I listen very well. I never interrupt, I never change the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of one another’s conversations constantly. It’s like having a passenger in your car who suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns you down a side street. Learn to listen! I beg of you. Pretend you are a dog like me and listen to other people rather than steal their stories.”
“We are the creators of our own destiny.”
“Your car goes where your eyes go. Simply another way of saying that you make your own destiny.”
“We all play by the same rules. But some people spend more time reading those rules and figuring out how to make them work in their behalf.”
“But I wondered why they had waited for Eve’s illness to make themselves available for companionship.”
“With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.” —”
“We are the creators of our own destiny,”
“Knowing that another path might have been easier for him to travel, but that it couldn’t possibly have offered a more satisfying conclusion.”
“being alone is not the same as being lonely?”
“Success is supposed to lead you on to more success. Our whole society is constructed around this principle.”
“All nights end, and all storms clear. The only storms that last are those within your own soul.”
“There is nothing more energizing than inhaling the tang of wilderness, loamy after rain, pungent with the richness of earth shuddering with life, or taking in the brisk dry cleanness of winter.”
“Consider Steve Jobs. One biographer said, “Was he smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead he was a genius.” Jobs dropped out of college, went to find himself in India, and at one point was forced out of Apple, the company he co-founded, when sales were slow in 1985. Few would have predicted the level of his success by his death. “Think different” became the slogan of a multinational monolith that fused art and technology under his guidance. Jobs may have been average or unexceptional in many domains, but his vision and ability to think differently made him a genius.”
“The last book I picked up had a picture of the Stranger on the front cover. Although his eyes were not nearly as beautiful in my dream state, they still took my breath away. I opened it up curiously and there was one word written in a large, bolded font: FATE.”
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