Katherine

“The trick would be to find which few of them had the potential for raw power, the nearly superhuman stamina, the indomitable willpower, and the intellectual capacity necessary to master the details of technique. And which of them, coupled improbably with all those other qualities, had the most important one: the ability to disregard his own ambitions, to throw his ego over the gunwales, to leave it swirling in the wake of his shell, and to pull, not just for himself, not just for glory, but for the other boys in the boat.”
― Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

“If there’s one thing the AT teaches, it is low-level ecstasy—something we could all do with more of in our lives.”
― Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

“But remember, boy, that a kind act can sometimes be as powerful as a sword.”
― Rick Riordan, The Battle of the Labyrinth

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again