“You want to be competent? she thought. You want to learn to be in control of what goes on around you, rather than just being pushed around? Then you’ll have to learn to deal with failure.”

“What I've learned from running is that the time to push hard is when you're hurting like crazy and you want to give up. Success is often just around the corner.”

“You want to be a hero,” he repeated. “You want to be one of those rare human beings who make history, rather than merely watch it flow around them like water around a rock.”

“Already she was learning that you must not follow a boy around when he had other things on his mind. If you did, he might get tired of being with you. You must just wait and be ready when he did want you.”

“Happiness is not in getting what you want, but in learning to want what you get. Don’t waste your time crying over what you’re not given. When you have tears in your eyes, you can’t see all the beautiful things around you.”

“You keep records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them. If you want to Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education, it’s history.”