Garth Stein

“That what you manifest is before you”

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

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

“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.”

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

“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!”

“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.”

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

“This is what I love to do: I love to run through a field of wet grass that has not been mowed recently, I love to run, keeping my snout low to the ground so the grass and the sparkles of water cover my face. I imagine myself as a vacuum cleaner, sucking in all the smells. all the life, a spear of summer grass. It reminds me of my childhood, back on the farm in Spangle, where there was no rain but there was grass, there were fields, and I ran. ~ p208”

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

“The first time I saw you,' he says, 'I knew we belonged together.”

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

“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.”

“I was upset, sad, angry - something! I needed to do something! I needed to feel myself, understand myself and this horrible world we are all trapped in, where bugs and tumors and viruses worm their way into our brains and lay their putrid eggs that hatch and eat us alive from the inside out.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Did he understand, as those interminable minutes ticked by, that being alone is not the same as being lonely? That being alone is a neutral state… something that exists only in the mind, not in the world, and, like a virus, is unable to survive without a willing host?”

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

“You’re scaring the dog,” Trish pointed out. She rarely called me by name. They do that inprisoner of war camps, I’ve heard. Depersonalization.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“To remember is to disengage from the present.”

“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?”

“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.”

“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”

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

“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?”

“And I wonder: Have I squandered my dogness? Have I forsaken my nature for my desires? Have I made a mistake by anticipating my future and shunning my present?”

“That which you manifest is before you.”

“This is just a crisis. A flash! A single match struck against the implacable darkness of time! You are the one who taught me never to give up. You taught me that new possibilities emerge for those who are prepared, for those who are ready. You have to believe!”

“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.”

“This is something I'd heard him say before: getting angry at another driver for a driving incident is pointless. You need to watch the drivers around you, understand their skill, confidence and aggression levels, and drive with them accordingly. Know who is driving next to you. 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.”

“To be able to possess a machine in such a way is the ultimate show of determination and awareness. It makes one realize that the physicality of 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.”

“Many of us have convinced ourselves that compromise is necessary to achieve our goals, that all of our goals are not attainable so we should eliminate the extraneous, prioritize our desires, and accept less than the moon.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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”

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

“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.”

“Such a simple concept, yet so true: that which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.”

“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.”

“However, I don’t understand why people insist on pitting the concepts of evolution and creation against each other. 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. What’s wrong with that idea?”

“Because memory is time folding back on itself. To remember is to disengage from the present. In order to reach any kind of success in automobile racing, a driver must never remember.”

“Very gently. Like there are eggshells on your pedals, and you don’t want to break them. That’s how you drive in the rain.”

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

“Art of Racing in the Rain--Do not mistake confidence and self-awareness for egotism.”