Imaginary Mockingbird

“I don’t know whether it’s better to run five miles a day, eat yogurt shakes, have no family within a thousand miles, and work eighty hours per week in a stressful environment year in and year out, with two weeks off (or less) for vacation, or eat shredded beef and bitter greens saute´ed in olive oil, drink five or six little cups of caffe` a day, smoke a few cigarettes, have your entire family and a community of friends within two miles of where you live, take at least four to six weeks of vacation and come back with a deep suntan, and recognize that what you do for a living is no ultimately going to make much difference in the world. Perhaps the fact that nervous breakdowns, heart disease, divorce, and suicide are so much lower here makes Romans think that we Americans are not really focusing on the things that matter.”
― Alan Epstein, As the Romans Do: An American Family's Italian Odyssey

“Picasso has magical eyes. He sees the world so differently than we do, but he is able to make us understand what he sees. That’s what a truly great artist does”
― Robert Sharenow, The Berlin Boxing Club

“Organized ghting doesn’t make sense to me,” she said. “Why would you want to let yourself get hurt if you didn’t have to? And why would you want to hurt an innocent person who you’re not even mad at, who you don’t even know?”
― Robert Sharenow, The Berlin Boxing Club

“A champion never allows a short-term failure to take her out of a long-term game.”
― Abby Wambach