Jerry O'Dell > Jerry's Quotes

“What was the secret, they wanted to know; in a thousand different ways they wanted to know The Secret. And not one of them was prepared, truly prepared to believe that it had not so much to do with chemicals and zippy mental tricks as with that most unprofound and sometimes heart-rending process of removing, molecule by molecule, the very tough rubber that comprised the bottoms of his training shoes. The Trial of Miles; Miles of Trials.”
― John L. Parker Jr., Once a Runner

“Have you really read all those books in your room?”

Alaska laughing- “Oh God no. I’ve maybe read a third of ‘em. But I’m going to read them all. I call it my Life’s Library. Every summer since I was little, I’ve gone to garage sales and bought all the books that looked interesting. So I always have something to read.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“Thomas Edison's last words were "It's very beautiful over there". I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“We are all going, I thought, and it applies to turtles and turtlenecks, Alaska the girl and Alaska the place, because nothing can last, not even the earth itself. The Buddha said that suffering was caused by desire, we'd learned, and that the cessation of desire meant the cessation of suffering. When you stopped wishing things wouldn't fall apart, you'd stop suffering when they did.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“Keeping vivid both the story of Pre and the truths Bowman held to be vital-namely, that we are all physical entities, that we all have the ability to get better, but to do that we have to accept our limits at any given moment and work within them. Great coaches are great because they see and help transcend those limits. If that is not an immortal message, it should be.”
― Kenny Moore, Bowerman and the Men of Oregon: The Story of Oregon's Legendary Coach and Nike's Co-founder

“The ancient Greeks," Bowman said, echoing his response to the Munich terror, "believed the Olympic arena so sacred they stopped their wars for them. Now we believe our wars are so sacred we sacrifice Olympics for them.”
― Kenny Moore, Bowerman and the Men of Oregon: The Story of Oregon's Legendary Coach and Nike's Co-founder

“When he talked with us about goals and hopes, he asked us, though never in so many words, to balance the hunger that is in all runners with some grasp of what our predecessors had achieved. The thing was not to blindly disregard limits but to understand the odds, even as one refused to accept them. He asked us, then, to leave open a tiny window of possibility. "If you go out to race," he said, "and know you'll lose, there's no probability involved. You'll lose. But if you go out knowing you will never give up, you'll still lose most of the time, but you'll be in the best position to kick from on that rare day when everything breaks right.”
― Kenny Moore, Bowerman and the Men of Oregon: The Story of Oregon's Legendary Coach and Nike's Co-founder

“The thing about dreams, though, is they usually sound crazy to everyone but you. All it takes is one other person to buy into them to keep you going.”
― Lopez Lomong, Running for My Life: One Lost Boy's Journey from the Killing Fields of Sudan to the Olympic Games

“I do not know how we could run so far and so fast and so long. We did not run with our own strength but with strength from God. That is the only explanation. The”
― Lopez Lomong, Running for My Life: One Lost Boy's Journey from the Killing Fields of Sudan to the Olympic Games

“I walked down the track, beaming with pride. God had brought me so far, through war, through eating garbage and running to forget about my empty stomach. No matter what I went through, God was always with me. He had always had this moment planned for me through both the good times and the bad, from the killing fields of Sudan to these Olympic Games and back again.”
― Lopez Lomong, Running for My Life: One Lost Boy's Journey from the Killing Fields of Sudan to the Olympic Games