Garth Stein Quotes

I suddenly realized. The zebra. It is not something outside of us. The zebra is something inside of us. Our fears. Our own self-destructive nature. The zebra is the worst part of us when we are face-to-face with our worst times. The demon is us!

Using a dog as a narrator has limitations and it has advantages. The limitations are that a dog cannot speak. A dog has no thumbs. A dog can't communicate his thoughts except with gestures.

I know in this time of great technological advancement, the idea of reading a book seems almost anachronistic, but I think it's worth preserving.

One's nature comes from within, not from without. The abomination occurs in subverting one's instinct in favor of a rigid code written by others. Trying to force yourself into a role that confounds your spirit will always break you.

I admire the female sex. The life makers. It must be amazing to have a body that can carry an entire creature inside. (I mean, other than a tapeworm, which I've had. That doesn't count as another life, really. That's a parasite and should never have been there in the first place.)

Whether he came from monkeys or fish is unimportant. The important idea is that when the body became "human" enough, the first human soul slipped into it. I

But that day I was anxious. I was nervous and worried, uneasy and distracted. I paced around and never felt settled. I didn't care for the sensation, yet I realized it was possibly a natural progression of my evolving soul, and therefore I tried my best to embrace it.

I know this much about racing in the rain. I know it is about balance. It is about anticipation and patience ... [it is also] about the mind! It is about owning one's body ... It is about believing that you are not you; you are everything. And everything is you.

What I have always liked best is when he talks about having no memory. No memory of things he'd done just a second before. Good or bad. Because memory is time folding back on itself. To remember is to disengage from the present. In order to reach any success in automobile racing, a driver must never remember. Which is why drivers compulsively record their every move, their every race, with cockpit cameras, in-car video, data mapping; a driver cannot be a witness to his own greatness. This is what Danny says. He says racing is doing. It is being a part of a moment and being aware of nothing else but that moment. Reflection must come at a later time. The great champion Julian Sabella Rosa has said: When I am racing, my mind and my body are working so quickly and so well together, I must be sure not to think, or else I will definitely make a mistake.

They gulped, those stupid birds; they ate from the bag and they swallowed with glee. And they choked on giant mouthfuls of my shit. My shit! Oh, the looks on their faces! The stunned silence. The indignation! The shaking of heads, and then they flew off en masse to the neighbour up the street with the dribbling fountain so they could wash their beaks.

We were both satellites orbiting Denny's sun, struggling for gravitational supremacy. Of course, she had the advantage of her tongue and her thumbs, and when I watched her kiss and fondle him sometimes she would glance at me and wink as if to gloat: Look at my thumbs! See what they can do!

It's so hard to communicate because there are so many moving parts. There's presentation and there's interpretation
and they're so dependent on each other it makes things very difficult.

[M]emory is time folding back on itself. To remember is to disengage from the present.

Struck by the pain of the ice and the rage of the water below that was forced to make room for the huge piece of frozen time, the glacier, trapped in a solid state for centuries, melting into the ocean and becoming one with its future. She feels small and insignificant in the face of such a display of nature.

A winner, a champion, will accept his fate. He will continue with his wheels in the dirt. He will do his best to maintain his line and gradually get himself back on the track when it is safe to do so. Yes, he loses a few places in the race. Yes, he is at a disadvantage. But he i A winner, a champion, will accept his fate. He will continue with his wheels in the dirt. He will do his best to maintain his line and gradually get himself back on the track when it is safe to do so. Yes, he loses a few places in the race. Yes, he is at a disadvantage. But he is still racing. He is still alive

The Weather Channel is not about weather; it is about the world! It is about how weather affects us all, our entire global economy, health, happiness, spirit. The channel delves with great detail into weather phenomena of all different kinds - hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, monsoons, hail, rain, lightning storms - and they especially delight in the confluence of multiple phenomena.

I had always wanted to love Eve as Denny loved her, but I never had because I was afraid. She was my rain. She was my unpredictable element. She was my fear. But a racer should not be afraid of the rain; a racer should embrace the rain. I, alone, could manifest a change around me. By changing my mood, my energy, I allowed Eve to regard me differently. And while I cannot say that I am a master of my own destiny, I can say that I have experienced a glimpse of mastery, and I know what I have to work toward.

Gestures are all that I have; sometimes they must be grand in nature.

The human language, as precise as it is with its thousands of words, can still be so wonderfully vague.

Demon. Gremlin. Poltergeist. Ghost. Phantom. Spirit. Shadow. Ghoul. Devil. People are afraid of them, so they relegate their existence to stories, volumes of books that can be closed and put on the shelf or left behind at a bed and breakfast; they clench their eyes shut, so they will see no evil. But trust me when I tell you that the zebra is real. Somewhere, the zebra is dancing.

This is what I would like. To play in those fields for a little longer. To spend a little more time being me before I become someone else. This is what I would like.

I also believe that man's continued domestication (if you care to use that silly euphemism) of dogs is motivated by fear: fear that dogs, left to evolve on their own, would, in fact, develop thumbs and smaller tongues, and therefore would be superior to men, who are slow and cumbersome, standing erect as they do. This is why dogs must live under the constant supervision of people ... From what Denny has told me about the government and its inner workings, it is my belief that this despicable plan was hatched in a back room of none other than the White House, probably by an evil adviser to a president of questionable moral and intellectual fortitude, and probably with the correct assessment - unfortunately, made from a position of paranoia rather than of spiritual insight - that all dogs are progressively inclined regarding social issues.

Why can't they see that spiritualism and science are one? That bodies evolve and souls evolve and the universe is a fluid place that marries them both in a wonderful package called a human being.

People are always worried about what's happening next. They often find it difficult to stand still, to occupy the now without worrying about the future. People are generally not satisfied with what they have; they are very concerned with what they are going to have.

I have made mistakes and I have hurt people, I do not deny that fact. But I have corrected those mistakes vigorously once I understood the error of my ways.

The true test of a champion is not whether he can triumph, but whether he can overcome obstacles.

Anyone who has a dog knows that they have some very deep thoughts, that they have moods and emotions, they get their feelings hurt. It's not a far reach to give them opinions and values and long-term desires.

Your car goes where your eyes go.
Lonliness is unable to survive without a willing host.

I understood that, as a dog, I could never be as interactive with humanity as I truly desired. Yet, I realized at that moment, I could be something else. I could provide something of need to the people around me.

Rain amplifies your mistakes, and water on the track can make your car handle unpredictably. When something unpredictable happens you have to react to it; if you're reacting at speed, you're reacting too late. And so you should be afraid.

There is no dishonor in losing the race. There is only dishonor in not racing because you are afraid to lose.

But I totally understood that what filled us with energy could be irritating to someone else,

But I wondered why they had waited for Eve's illness to make themselves available for companionship.

In documentary films, you're a storyteller using found objects. You still have to have a story arc and all the elements that make a good story. It really helped me mature as a storyteller.

I'll give you a theory: Man's closest relative is not the chimpanzee, as the TV people believe, but is, in fact, the dog.

In Mongolia, when a dog dies, he is buried high in the hills so people cannot walk on his grave. The dog's master whispers in the dog's ear his wishes that the dog will return as a man in his next life. Then his tail is cut off and put beneath his head, and a piece of meat of fat is cut off and placed in his mouth to sustain his soul for its journey; before he is reincarnated, the dog's soul is freed to travel the land, to run across the high desert plains for as long as it would like.
I learned that from a program on the National Geographic Channel, so I believe it is true. Not all dogs return as men, they say; only those who are ready.
I am ready.

Stories continue in all directions to include even the retelling of the stories themselves, as legend is informed by interpretation, and interpretation is informed by time.

How quickly a year passes, like a mouthful of food snatched from the maw of eternity.

Man's closest relative is not the chimpanzee, as the TV people believe, but is, in fact, the dog. "Enzo"
I admire the female sex. The life makers. It must be amazing to have a body that can carry an entire creature inside. "Enzo

I gotta be honest with you ... I hate numbers. I hate chapter numbers. I hate them.

It makes one realize that the physicality if our world is a boundary to us only if our will is weak; a true champion can accomplish things that a normal person would think impossible.

You have to reach for things beyond your grasp, or what is heaven for

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.

He never understood when she said that if she went to a doctor, the doctor would only invent a disease that would explain why he couldn't help her.

What can I do but force myself to remember? Try to imprint what I know on my soul, a thing that has no surface, no sides, no pages, no form of any kind. Carry it so deeply in the pockets of my existence that when I open my eyes and look down at my new hands with their thumbs that are able to close tightly around their fingers, I will already know. I will already see.

I marveled at them both; how difficult it must be to be a person. To constantly subvert your desires. To worry about doing the right thing, rather than doing what is most expedient. At that moment, honestly, I had grave doubts as to my ability to interact on such a level. I wondered if I could ever become the human I hoped to be.

I've always felt almost human. I've always known that there's something about me that's different than other dogs. Sure, I'm stuffed into a dog's body, but that's just the shell. It's what's inside that's important. The soul. And my soul is very human.

To finish the race first, you must first finish the race.

She was my rain. She was my unpredictable element. She was my fear. But a racer should not be afraid of rain; a racer should embrace the rain.

When a dog dies, his soul is released to run until he is ready to be reborn

People and their rituals. They cling to things so hard sometimes.

To be a champion, you must have no ego at all. You must not exist as a separate entity. You must give yourself over to the race. You are nothing if not for your team, your car, your shoes, your tires. Do not mistake confidence and self-awareness for egotism.

To live every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live. To feel the joy of life, as Eve felt the joy of life. To separate oneself from the burden, the angst, the anguish that we all encounter every day. To say I am alive, I am wonderful, I am. I am. That is something to aspire to.

I believe that people were not so allergic to their environment until they began polluting themselves and their world with so many drugs and toxins.

Gestures are all that I have.

A man who drives a two-thousand-pound car at one hundred seventy miles per hour does not get flustered by the honking of the geese.

Any problems that may occur have ultimately been caused by you, because you are responsible for where you are and what you are doing there.

I'll return your love, " she says."And I won't look at you differently. And I'll always be there to put something under your head so you don't hurt yourself.

You're scaring the dog, Trish pointed out. She rarely called me by name. They do that in
prisoner of war camps, I've heard. Depersonalization.

The craft of writing is all the stuff that you can learn through school; go to workshops and read books. Learn characterization, plot and dialogue and pacing and word choice and point of view. Then there's also the art of it which is sort of the unknown, the inspiration, the stuff that is noncerebral.

If I went to someone for therapy, I wouldn't be a writer ... I would just be well adjusted.

Children are not chattel. they cannot be given away or traded in the marketplace.

In the emptiness that was all around me, I noticed an old tennis ball in the plantings; I picked it up and dropped it at Zoë's feet. I didn't know what I was doing, if I had a specific intention. Was I trying to lighten the mood? I don't know, but I felt I had to do something. So there the ball bounced to a stop at her bare feet.
She looked down at the ball but did nothing with it.
Maxwell noticed what I had done, and he noticed Zoë's lack of reaction. He picked up the ball and, with a mighty heave, threw it so far into the woods behind the house that I lost sight of it and could only barely hear it crash through the leaves of bushes on its way back to earth. It was quite an impressive toss, the pale tennis ball sailing through the air against the clear blue sky. What amount of psychic pain was expended on that ball, I had no idea.

He never understood, as I did, what she meant when she said that medication would only mask the pain, not make it go away, and what's the point of that. He never understood when she said that if she went to a doctor, the doctor would only invent a disease that would explain why he couldn't help her. And there was so much time between episodes. There was so much hope.

One more lap, Denny! One more lap! Faster!

Grandparents are like that. Grandparents are convinced they're better parents than their own kids, whose lives they've already fucked up. The problem is, grandparents are pains in the ass because they have money

I know the truth, and I will tell you now: He was admired, loved, cheered, honored, respected. In life as well as in death. A great man, he is. A great man, he was. A great man he will be. He died that day because his body had served its purpose. His soul had done what it came to do, learned what it came to learn, and then was free to leave. And I knew, as Denny sped me toward the doctor who would fix me, that if I had already accomplished what I set out to accomplish here on earth, if I had already learned what I was meant to learn, I would have left the curb one second later than I had, and I would have been killed instantly by that car. But I was not killed. Because I was not finished. I still had work to do.

Yes: the race is long-to finish first, first you must finish. ~p206

The car goes where the eyes go.

Success at any endeavor on an elite level demands selfishness.

Grandparents are convinced they're better parents than their own kids, whose lives they've already fucked up.

It's frustrating for me to be unable to speak. To feel that I have so much to say, so many ways I can help, but I'm locked in a soundproof box, a game show isolation booth from which I can see out and I can hear what's going on, but they never turn on my microphone and they never let me out. It might drive a person mad. It certainly has driven many a dog mad.

Your car goes where your eyes go. Simply another way of saying that which you manifest is before you.

Such a simple concept, yet so true. That which we manifest is before us, we are the creators of our own destiny.

We too, must shatter the mirrors. We must look in to ourselves and root out the distortions until that thing which we know in our hearts is perfect and true, stands before us.

Truth, honesty, integrity, he said. "And loyalty. Above truth, honesty, and integrity, I would demand loyalty. Loyalty above all. You have to swear an oath."

"I can never put loyalty above truth honesty and integrity. . . don't demand loyalty over truth. Don't ever do that.

What I want now is what I've always wanted.

Try to imprint what I know on my soul, a thing that has no surface, no sides, no pages, no form of any kind.

People speak of a will to live. They rarely speak of a will to die. Because people are afraid of death. Death is dark and unknown and frightening. But not for me. It is not the end.

that his gesture was symbolic, as Serena said. But symbolic of

That what you manifest is before you

I hear hundreds of years of life. I hear wind and rain and fire and beetles. I hear the seasons changing and birds and squirrels. I hear the life of the trees this wood came from.

To remember is to leave the present.

Inside each of us resides the truth, the absolute truth. But sometimes the truth is hidden in a hall of mirrors. Sometimes we believe we are viewing the read thing, when in fact we are viewing a facsimile, a distortion ... We too, must shatter the mirrors. We must look into ourselves and root out the distortions until that thing which we know in our hearts is perfect and true, stands before us. Only then will justice be served.

The true hero is flawed. The true test of a champion is not whether he can triumph, but whether he can overcome obstacles - preferably of his own making - in order to triumph.

the result is what people live with, not the cause.

Growing old is a pathetic thing. It is full of limitations and reduction. It happens to us all, I know; but I think that it might not have to. I think it happens to those of us who request it. And in our current mind-set, our collective ennui, it is what we have chosen to do. But one day a mutant child will be born who refuses to age, who refuses to acknowledge the limitations of these bodies of ours, who lives in health until he is done with life, not until his body no longer supports him. He will live for hundreds of years, like Noah. Like Moses. This child's genes will be passed to his offspring, and more like him will follow. And their genetic makeup will supplant the genes of those of us who need to grow old and decay before we die. I believe that one day it will come to pass; however, such a world is beyond my purview.

The sun rises every day. What is to love? Lock the sun in a box. Force the sun to overcome adversity in order to rise. Then we will cheer! I will often admire beautiful sunrise, but I will never consider the sun a champion for having risen.

Our dog, Comet, is a Lab/poodle mix. She's goofy and silly and sweet.

I missed Eve so much I couldn't be a human anymore and feel the pain that humans feel. I had to be an animal again.

Oh, my faith has flagged at times. It's easy to fall back into the same routines and paint over the sublime with coat after coat of indifference ... I promise you something: when you have touched the face of God, you can never unlearn what you have learned. You can never unsee what you have seen.

You know," he said, "at some point you're going to realize that being a smart-ass isn't as much about being smart as it is about being an ass." "That's good," I said. "Did you read that in a fortune cookie?

Do not mistake confidence and self-awareness for egotism. I

That which is around me does not affect my mood; my mood affects that which is around me.

He is so brilliant. He shines. He's beautiful with his hands that grab things and his tongue that says things and the way he stands and chews his food for so long, mashing it into a paste before he swallows.

He says racing is doing. It is being a part of a moment and being aware of nothing else but that moment. Reflection must come at a later time.

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 deflect 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. For instance, if we met a party and I wanted to tell you a story about the time I needed to get a soccer ball in my neighbor's yard but his dog chased me and I had to jump into a swimming pool to escape, and I began telling the story , you, upon hearing the words 'soccer' and 'neighbor' in the same sentence, might interrupt and mention that your childhood neighbor was Pele, the famous soccer player, and I might be courteous and say, Didn't he play for the Cosmos of New York? Did you grow up in New York? And you might reply that no, you grew up in Brazil on the streets of Tres Coracoes with Pele and I might say, I thought you were from Tennessee, and you might say, not originally, and then go on to outline your genealogy at length. So my initial conversational gambit - that I had a funny story about being chased by my neighbor's dog - would be totally lost, and only because you had to tell me all about Pele. Learn to listen! I beg of you. Pretend you are a dog like me and listen to other people rather than steal their stories.

If you feel you don't have enough, you hold on to things," he said. "But if you feel you have enough, you let go of things.

If you taught me to read and provided for me the same computer system as someone has provided for Stephen Hawking, I, too, would write great books. And yet you don't teach me to read, and you don't give me a computer stick I can push around with my nose to point at the next letter I wish typed. So whose fault is it that I am what I am?

Can we not will ourselves to achieve the impossible? Can we not use the power of our life force to change something: one small thing, one insignificant moment, one breath, one gesture? Is there nothing we can do to change what is around us?