Brett > Brett's Quotes

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“Anyone who thinks sitting in church can make you a Christian must also think that sitting in a garage can make you a car.”
― Garrison Keillor

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
― haruki murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.”
― Dean Karnazes

“I run because if I didn’t, I’d be sluggish and glum and spend too much time on the couch. I run to breathe the fresh air. I run to explore. I run to escape the ordinary. I run…to savor the trip along the way. Life becomes a little more vibrant, a little more intense. I like that.”
― Dean Karnazes, Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

“Some seek the comfort of their therapist's office, other head to the corner pub and dive into a pint, but I chose running as my therapy.”
― Dean Karnazes, Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

“The reason we race isn't so much to beat each other,... but to be with each other.”
― Christopher McDougall, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

“That was the real secret of the Tarahumara: they'd never forgotten what it felt like to love running. They remembered that running was mankind's first fine art, our original act of inspired creation. Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees, we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain. And when our ancestors finally did make their first cave paintings, what were the first designs? A downward slash, lightning bolts through the bottom and middle--behold, the Running Man.
Distance running was revered because it was indispensable; it was the way we survived and thrived and spread across the planet. You ran to eat and to avoid being eaten; you ran to find a mate and impress her, and with her you ran off to start a new life together. You had to love running, or you wouldn't live to love anything else. And like everyhing else we ove--everything we sentimentally call our 'passions' and 'desires' it's really an encoded ancestral necessity. We were born to run; we were born because we run. We're all Running People, as the Tarahumara have always known.”
― Christopher McDougall, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

“Of course it was painful, and there were times when, emotionally, I just wanted to chuck it all. But pain seems to be a precondition for this kind of sport. If pain weren't involved, who in the world would ever go to the trouble of taking part in sports like the triathlon or the marathon, which demand such an investment of time and energy? It's precisely because of the pain, precisely because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive--or at least a partial sense of it. Your quality of experience is based not on standards such as time or ranking, but on finally awakening to an awareness of the fluidity within action itself.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“I run because long after my footprints fade away, maybe I will have inspired a few to reject the easy path, hit the trails, put one foot in front of the other, and come to the same conclusion I did: I run because it always takes me where I want to go.”
― Dean Karnazes, Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

“...there was some kind of connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love *running*. The engineering was certainly the same: both depended on loosening your grip on your own desires, putting aside what you wanted and appreciating what you've got, being patient and forgiving and... undemanding...maybe we shouldn't be surprised that getting better at one could make you better at the other.”
― Christopher McDougall, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

“People think I'm crazy to put myself through such torture, though I would argue otherwise. Somewhere along the line we seem to have confused comfort with happiness. Dostoyevsky had it right: 'Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.' Never are my senses more engaged than when the pain sets in. There is a magic in misery. Just ask any runner.”
― Dean Karnazes, Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

“If you don't have answers to your problems after a four-hour run, you ain't getting them.”
― Christopher McDougall, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

“Everything you need is already inside.”
― William J. Bowerman

“In the year 2025, the best men don't run for president, they run for their lives. . . .”
― Stephen King, The Running Man

“As long as my heart's still in it, I'll keep going. If the passion's there, why stop?...
There'll likely be a point of diminishing returns, a point where my strength will begin to wane. Until then, I'll just keep plodding onward, putting one foot in front of the other to the best of my ability. Smiling the entire time.”
― Dean Karnazes, Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

“Running is about finding your inner peace, and so is a life well lived.”
― Dean Karnazes

“I often lose motivation, but it's something I accept as normal.”
― Bill Rodgers

“How to run an ultramarathon ? Puff out your chest, put one foot in front of the other, and don't stop till you cross the finish line.”
― Dean Karnazes, Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

“I'm often asked what I think about as I run. Usually the people who ask this have never run long distances themselves. I always ponder the question. What exactly do I think about when I'm running? I don't have a clue.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“But I also realize that winning doesn't always mean getting first place; it means getting the best out of yourself.”
― Meb Keflezighi, Run to Overcome: The Inspiring Story of an American Champion's Long-Distance Quest to Achieve a Big Dream

“I had as many doubts as anyone else. Standing on the starting line, we're all cowards.”
― Alberto Salazar

“I don't run to add days to my life, I run to add life to my days.”
― Ronald Rook

“As we run, we become.”
― Amby Burfoot