Before you were born, and were still too tiny for the human eye to see, you won the race for life from among 250 million competitors. And yet, how fast you have forgotten your strength, when your very existence is proof of your greatness.

I have never heard anyone profess indifference to a boat race. Why should you row a boat race? Why endure long months of pain in preparation of a fierce half hour, or even six minutes, that will leave you all but dead? Does anyone ask the question? Is there anyone who would not go through all its costs, and more, for the moment when anguish breaks into triumph - or even for the glory of having nobly lost? Is life less than a boat race? If a man will give all the blood in his body to win the one, will he not spend all the might of his soul to prevail in the other?

I don't mind exercise but it's a private activity. Joggers should run in a wheel - like hamsters - because I don't want to look at them. And I really hate people who go on an airplane in jogging outfits. That's a major offense today, even bigger than Spandex bicycle pants. You see eighty-year-old women coming on the plane in jogging outfits for comfort. Well my comfort - my mental comfort - is completely ruined when I see them coming. You're on an airplane, not in your bedroom, so please! And I really hate walkathons: blocking traffic, people patting themselves on the back. The whole attitude offends me. They have this smug look on their faces as they hold you up in traffic so that they can give two cents to some charity.

Running your own race is doing the best you can every chance you get with what you have for a purpose that outlives you.

A race, like an individual, lifts itself up by lifting others up.

"Yes, you will. And I will warn you now that not their blood but your suspicion might build evil in them. They will be what you expect of them…I think when a man finds good or bad in his children he is seeing only what he planted in them after they cleared the womb."
"You can’t make a race horse of a pig."
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make a very fast pig."

Life is a Sisyphean race, run ever faster toward a finish line that is merely the start of the next race

First we had the legs race. Then we had the arms race. Now we’re going to have the brain race.

If the future of humanity is decided in your absence, because you are too busy feeding and clothing your kids, you and they will not be exempt from the consequences.

"Did you know that when a guy comes, he comes 200 million sperm? And you're trying to tell me that your child is special because one out of 200 million — that load! we're talking one load! — connected. Gee, what are the fucking odds? 200 million; you know what that means? I have wiped civilizations off my chest with a gray gym sock. That is special. Entire nations have flaked and crusted in the hair around my navel! That is special. And I want you to remember that, you two egg-carrying beings out there, with that holier-than-thou "we have the gift of life" attitude. I've tossed universes...in my underpants...while napping! Boom! A milky way shoots into my jockey shorts, "Aaaah, what's for fucking breakfast?

Writing can give you what having a baby can give you: it can get you to start paying attention, can help you to soften, can wake you up.

Researchers have found that a woman’s brain-cell volume actually decreases during pregnancy (which could explain why you won’t remember what you just read about in that last paragraph). And — for reasons unknown — women pregnant with girls are more forgetful, on average, than those carrying boys (who would have guessed?). Fortunately, the pregnancy brain fog (similar to what many women experience premenstrually, only thicker) is only temporary. Your brain will plump back up a few months after delivery.

The race of life is a marathon, not a sprint.

Imagine that a career is like a marathon — a long, grueling, and ultimately rewarding endeavor. Now imagine a marathon where both men and women arrive at the starting line equally fit and trained. The gun goes off. The men and women run side by side. The male marathoners are routinely cheered on: “Lookin’ strong! On your way!” But the female runners hear a different message. “You know you don’t have to do this!” the crowd shouts. Or “Good start — but you probably won’t want to finish.” The farther the marathoners run, the louder the cries grow for the men: “Keep going! You’ve got this!” But the women hear more and more doubts about their efforts. External voices, and often their own internal voice, repeatedly question their decision to keep running. The voices can even grow hostile. As the women struggle to endure the rigors of the race, spectators shout, “Why are you running when your children need you at home?” Back in 1997, Debi Hemmeter was a rising