Quotable Runner Great Moments of Wisdom, Inspiration, Wrongheadedness, and Humor

A few of our favorite quotes: "Bid me run and I will strive with things impossible."-Shakespeare "Long distance running is particularly good training in perseverance."-Chairman Mao "Without ice cream there would be darkness and chaos."-Don Kardong "Mental will is a muscle that needs exercise, like the muscles of the body."-Lynn Jennings "If you want to win a race you have to go a little berserk."-Bill Rodgers "Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it."-Oprah Winfrey "The mile has all the elements of drama."-Roger Bannister "Mind is everything. Muscle-pieces of rubber. All that I am, I am because of my mind."-Paavo Nurmi "The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare."-Juma Ikangaa "Start slowly, then taper off."-Walt Stack "Records are made to be broken."-Anonymous Introduction by Mark Will-Weber Compiling a book of quotations is a bit like prospecting. For long, unrewarded hours you sift through the silt, murk, and bottom mud which comprise the great body of sports literature and journalism-all for that rare nugget of gold. I began work on The Quotable Runner without actually realizing that I was doing it. (I highly recommend this method for any lengthy task if you can arrange it.) The first few hundred quotations that I gathered were used at the bottom of race results, in batches of five or six quotes per race, which I passed on to the cross-country runners at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. As their coach, I thought it might be a fun way to jazz up the results sheets and inspire the runners to train with diligence and a new spark.Will-Weber, Mark is the author of 'Quotable Runner Great Moments of Wisdom, Inspiration, Wrongheadedness, and Humor' with ISBN 9781558214200 and ISBN 1558214208.