Quotes from Garth Stein

Racing is about discipline and intelligence, not about who has the heavier foot. The one who drives smart will always win in the end.

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

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.

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

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.

Suppressing the symptom does nothing but force the true problem to express itself on a deeper level at some other time.

People, like dogs, love repetition. Chasing a ball, lapping a course in a race car, sliding down a slide. Because as much as each incident is similar, so it is different.

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.

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.

There is no dishonour in losing the race," Don said. "There is only dishonour in not racing because you are afraid to lose.

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?

What he offered me is not for me to keep, but for me to give to another.

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.

Eve continued with the inexorable process of dying, Zoe spent too much time with her grandparents, and Denny and I worked at slowing the beating of our hearts so we wouldn't feel so much pain.

We had come so close to greatness. We had smelled it, and it smelled like roast pig. Everybody likes the smell of roast pig. But what is worse, smelling the roast and not feasting, or not smelling the roast at all?

My soul has learned what it came to learn, and all the other things are just things. We can't have everything we want. Sometimes, we simply have to believe.

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

To live everyday as if it has been stolen by 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. When I am a person, that is how I will live my life.

Get busy mother f---er!

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

After this happens, Denny will be free to live his life, and I will return to earth in a new form, as a man, and I will find him and shake his hand and comment on how talented he is, and then I will wink at him and say, "Enzo says hello," and turn and walk quickly away as he calls after me, "Do I know you?" He will call, "Have we met before?

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

The smell would have given me an erection if I'd still had testicles.

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.