Garth Stein Quotes & Sayings

The race is long. To finish first, you must first finish. — Garth Stein

I know this much about racing in the rain. I know it is about balance. It is about anticipation and patience ... [it is also] about the mind! It is about owning one's body ... It is about believing that you are not you; you are everything. And everything is you. — Garth Stein

I know the truth, and I will tell you now: He was admired, loved, cheered, honored, respected. In life as well as in death. A great man, he is. A great man, he was. A great man he will be. He died that day because his body had served its purpose. His soul had done what it came to do, learned what it came to learn, and then was free to leave. And I knew, as Denny sped me toward the doctor who would fix me, that if I had already accomplished what I set out to accomplish here on earth, if I had already learned what I was meant to learn, I would have left the curb one second later than I had, and I would have been killed instantly by that car. But I was not killed. Because I was not finished. I still had work to do. — Garth Stein

Somewhere, the zebra is dancing. — Garth Stein

Because the earth calls. The soil, the rocks, the clay. It calls to us to remind us, to make sure we remember. The earth will ultimately win. It always does. We will, all of us, end our lives here. Even the birds. — Garth Stein

Demon. Gremlin. Poltergeist. Ghost. Phantom. Spirit. Shadow. Ghoul. Devil. People are afraid of them, so they relegate their existence to stories, volumes of books that can be closed and put on the shelf or left behind at a bed and breakfast; they clench their eyes shut, so they will see no evil. But trust me when I tell you that the zebra is real. Somewhere, the zebra is dancing. — Garth Stein

The Weather Channel is not about weather; it is about the world! It is about how weather affects us all, our entire global economy, health, happiness, spirit. The channel delves with great detail into weather phenomena of all different kinds - hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, monsoons, hail, rain, lightning storms - and they especially delight in the confluence of multiple phenomena. — Garth Stein

Growing old is a pathetic thing. It is full of limitations and reduction. It happens to us all, I know; but I think that it might not have to. I think it happens to those of us who request it. And in our current mind-set, our collective ennui, it is what we have chosen to do. But one day a mutant child will be born who refuses to age, who refuses to acknowledge the limitations of these bodies of ours, who lives in health until he is done with life, not until his body no longer supports him. He will live for hundreds of years, like Noah. Like Moses. This child's genes will be passed to his offspring, and more like him will follow. And their genetic makeup will supplant the genes of those of us who need to grow old and decay before we die. I believe that one day it will come to pass; however, such a world is beyond my purview. — Garth Stein

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. — Garth Stein

This is what I would like. To play in those fields for a little longer. To spend a little more time being me before I become someone else. This is what I would like. — Garth Stein

In Seattle we live among the trees and the waterways, and we feel we are rocked gently in the cradle of life. Our winters are not cold and our summers are not hot and we congratulate ourselves for choosing such a spectacular place to rest our heads. — Garth Stein

I realized, then, that being an adult was just about bullshitting everyone around you. Just do things until someone stops you from doing those things, and then say, "Oh, that isn't allowed? — Garth Stein

Anyone who has a dog knows that they have some very deep thoughts, that they have moods and emotions, they get their feelings hurt. It's not a far reach to give them opinions and values and long-term desires. — Garth Stein

What I want now is what I've always wanted. — Garth Stein

the result is what people live with, not the cause. — Garth Stein

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. — Garth Stein

I know in this time of great technological advancement, the idea of reading a book seems almost anachronistic, but I think it's worth preserving. — Garth Stein

What can I do but force myself to remember? Try to imprint what I know on my soul, a thing that has no surface, no sides, no pages, no form of any kind. Carry it so deeply in the pockets of my existence that when I open my eyes and look down at my new hands with their thumbs that are able to close tightly around their fingers, I will already know. I will already see. — Garth Stein

All athletes speak about the mental element of athletics, and it usually boils down to the same thing: if you can remove your ego from the game, you can function with much more clarity and you are more likely to succeed. Wouldn't it be interesting if we all began speaking about the mental element of our lives in this way? — Garth Stein

You can't know what's going to happen before it happens. — Garth Stein

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

Terriers are problem solvers. They'll do what you tell them, but only if it happens to be in line with what they wanted to do anyway. — Garth Stein

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. — Garth Stein

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. — Garth Stein

Denny was in third place, behind two other cars. They drove past us, and when they came back around for the checkered flag, Denny was by himself; he won the race. When asked how he had overtaken two cars on the final lap, he simply smiled and said that when he saw the starter wag one finger, meaning it was the last lap, he got a flash, and he said to himself, "I will win this race." One of the racers ahead of him spun off the track, the other locked up his wheels and gave Denny an easy opening to pass. "It's never too late," Denny said to Mark. "Things change. — Garth Stein

She died that night. Her last breath took her soul, I saw it in my dream. I saw her soul leave her body as she exhaled, and then she had no more needs, no more reason; she was released from her body, and being released, she continued her journey elsewhere, high in the firmament where soul material gathers and plays out all the dreams and joys of which we temporal beings can barely conceive, all the things that are beyond our comprehension, but even so, are not beyond our attainment if we choose to attain them, and believe that we truly can. — Garth Stein

I understood that, as a dog, I could never be as interactive with humanity as I truly desired. Yet, I realized at that moment, I could be something else. I could provide something of need to the people around me. — Garth Stein

They gulped, those stupid birds; they ate from the bag and they swallowed with glee. And they choked on giant mouthfuls of my shit. My shit! Oh, the looks on their faces! The stunned silence. The indignation! The shaking of heads, and then they flew off en masse to the neighbour up the street with the dribbling fountain so they could wash their beaks. — Garth Stein

I marveled at them both; how difficult it must be to be a person. To constantly subvert your desires. To worry about doing the right thing, rather than doing what is most expedient. At that moment, honestly, I had grave doubts as to my ability to interact on such a level. I wondered if I could ever become the human I hoped to be. — Garth Stein

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. — Garth Stein

Those monkey-thumbs were meant for dogs. Give me my thumbs, you fu**ing monkeys! — Garth Stein

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

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. — Garth Stein

I'll return your love, " she says."And I won't look at you differently. And I'll always be there to put something under your head so you don't hurt yourself. — Garth Stein

The true hero is flawed. The true test of a champion is not whether he can triumph, but whether he can overcome obstacles - preferably of his own making - in order to triumph. — Garth Stein

He never understood, as I did, what she meant when she said that medication would only mask the pain, not make it go away, and what's the point of that. He never understood when she said that if she went to a doctor, the doctor would only invent a disease that would explain why he couldn't help her. And there was so much time between episodes. There was so much hope. — Garth Stein

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. — Garth Stein

So what if man's body evolved from the monkeys? Whether he came from monkeys or fish is unimportant. The important idea is that when the body became "human" enough, the first human soul slipped into it. — Garth Stein

It's frustrating for me to be unable to speak. To feel that I have so much to say, so many ways I can help, but I'm locked in a soundproof box, a game show isolation booth from which I can see out and I can hear what's going on, but they never turn on my microphone and they never let me out. It might drive a person mad. It certainly has driven many a dog mad. — Garth Stein

The human language, as precise as it is with its thousands of words, can still be so wonderfully vague. — Garth Stein

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. — Garth Stein

But there's nothing like your first {child}. They grow up so fast. — Garth Stein

You have to reach for things beyond your grasp, or what is heaven for — Garth Stein

Ben Harrison is a dick-faced troll! — Garth Stein

How quickly a year passes, like a mouthful of food snatched from the maw of eternity. — Garth Stein

The rain has been incessant. It feeds my soul. I feel that it washes over my body, and a part of me drips into the soil with the rain, and a part of me becomes the soil and is drank into the roots of these trees and I have become one with them. — Garth Stein

A woman scorned, indeed! Kate Hepburn would smash her with a single blow and laugh while doing it. — Garth Stein

A race car driver must be very selfish. It is a cold truth: even his family must came second to the race. — Garth Stein

No, you don't remember, and sometimes it's best that way. Sometimes it's best to start fresh. Every day, fresh. Living always in the present, unburdened by the pain of the past. Most of us drag around our misdeeds like giant dead birds tied to our necks; we condemn ourselves to telling every stranger we meet the story of our anguish and inadequacies, hoping that one day we will be forgiven, hoping that we will find a person who will look at us and pretend to ignore the ridiculous dead birds hanging from our sunburned and weather-beaten necks. And if we find that person, and if we don't hate him for not hating us, if we don't hold him in contempt for not treating us contemptuously, as we expect to be treated - nay, as we demand to be treated - well, that person will be something of a soul mate, I imagine. — Garth Stein

People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of one another's conversations constantly. It's like having a passenger in your car who suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns you down a side street. — Garth Stein

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

That which is around me does not affect my mood; my mood affects that which is around me. — Garth Stein

But I wondered why they had waited for Eve's illness to make themselves available for companionship. — Garth Stein

Your car goes where your eyes go.
Lonliness is unable to survive without a willing host. — Garth Stein

The full moon rises. The fog clings to the lowest branches of the spruce trees. The man steps out of the darkest corner of the forest and finds himself transformed into ...
A monkey?
I think not. — Garth Stein

Music doesn't have a bedtime, — Garth Stein

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? — Garth Stein

The sun rises every day. What is to love? Lock the sun in a box. Force the sun to overcome adversity in order to rise. Then we will cheer! I will often admire beautiful sunrise, but I will never consider the sun a champion for having risen. — Garth Stein

Inside each of us resides the truth, I began, the absolute truth. But sometimes the truth is hidden in a hall of mirrors. Sometimes we believe we are viewing the real thing, when in fact we are viewing a facsimile, a distortion. — Garth Stein

No race has ever been won in the first corner," he said. "But plenty of races have been lost there." I — Garth Stein

You have to have a sense of humor about it all. You can't take yourself too seriously. — Garth Stein

Stories continue in all directions to include even the retelling of the stories themselves, as legend is informed by interpretation, and interpretation is informed by time. — Garth Stein

The visible becomes inevitable... — Garth Stein

With a book - presuming it's a good book - you can depend upon an outcome that adheres to the necessities of drama. The question will be answered. It has to be. The answer may not be happy; we can't guarantee a comedy. Sometimes tragedy strikes. But there will be a conclusion. Of that we can be sure. That's the whole point of a book. But in real life, there is no guarantee that any question will ever be answered. Real life is messy because we don't know where it's going to go. — Garth Stein

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. — Garth Stein

A hero without a flaw is of no interest to an audience or to the universe, which, after all, is based on conflict and opposition, the irresistible force meeting the unmovable object. — Garth Stein

We are all connected
I believed it then and believe it still now
at least in an energetic sense. And who's to say this energy is not real? We can't see gravity, either, yet we don't deny it. We can't see magnetism, yet we don't question its forcefulness. So, why, then, when people
spiritual people
talk about a force of substance that binds us all, that unites us all
when these people talk about souls
why do we dismiss them as charlatans? — Garth Stein

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. — Garth Stein

I suddenly realized. The zebra. It is not something outside of us. The zebra is something inside of us. Our fears. Our own self-destructive nature. The zebra is the worst part of us when we are face-to-face with our worst times. The demon is us! — Garth Stein

Oh, my faith has flagged at times. It's easy to fall back into the same routines and paint over the sublime with coat after coat of indifference ... I promise you something: when you have touched the face of God, you can never unlearn what you have learned. You can never unsee what you have seen. — Garth Stein

This is a rule of racing: No race has ever been won in the first corner; many have been lost there. — Garth Stein

We are all afforded our physical existence so we can learn about ourselves. — Garth Stein

Yet for every peak there is a valley. — Garth Stein

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. — Garth Stein

But I totally understood that what filled us with energy could be irritating to someone else, — Garth Stein

Success at any endeavor on an elite level demands selfishness. — Garth Stein

The first time I saw you,' he says, 'I knew we belonged together. — Garth Stein

I think the one that's going to be the hardest to make into a film is the one that's probably going to be made into a film, which is 'The Art of Racing in the Rain.' I mean, it's narrated by a dog. How do you do that? But hopefully we'll get to see. — Garth Stein

head to acknowledge the occasional petting — Garth Stein

You should shine with all of your light all the time. — Garth Stein

...the race isn't over until the checker flies. — Garth Stein

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. — Garth Stein

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. — Garth Stein

Inside each of us resides the truth, the absolute truth. But sometimes the truth is hidden in a hall of mirrors. Sometimes we believe we are viewing the read thing, when in fact we are viewing a facsimile, a distortion ... We too, must shatter the mirrors. We must look into ourselves and root out the distortions until that thing which we know in our hearts is perfect and true, stands before us. Only then will justice be served. — Garth Stein

Struck by the pain of the ice and the rage of the water below that was forced to make room for the huge piece of frozen time, the glacier, trapped in a solid state for centuries, melting into the ocean and becoming one with its future. She feels small and insignificant in the face of such a display of nature. — Garth Stein

That which we manifest is before us. — Garth Stein

In documentary films, you're a storyteller using found objects. You still have to have a story arc and all the elements that make a good story. It really helped me mature as a storyteller. — Garth Stein

Children are not chattel. they cannot be given away or traded in the marketplace. — Garth Stein

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. — Garth Stein

It's so hard to communicate because there are so many moving parts. There's presentation and there's interpretation
and they're so dependent on each other it makes things very difficult. — Garth Stein

A great man, Luigi Chinetti. Clever and smart and resourceful. He died in 1994 at the age of ninety-three years. I often wonder who he is now, who possesses his soul. Does a child know his own spiritual background, his own pedigree? I doubt it. But somewhere, a child surprises himself with his endurance, his quick mind, his dextrous hands. Somewhere a child accomplishes with ease that which usually takes great effort. And this child, who has been found to his past but whose heart still beats for the thrill of the race, this child's soul awakens.
And a new champion walks among us. — Garth Stein

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 — Garth Stein

My intent, here, is to tell our story in a dramatically truthful way. While the facts may be less than accurate, please understand that the emotion is true. The intent is true. And, dramatically speaking, intention is everything. — Garth Stein

Do not blame other people for being themselves, you will only be frustrated by it. — Garth Stein

If I went to someone for therapy, I wouldn't be a writer ... I would just be well adjusted. — Garth Stein

The craft of writing is all the stuff that you can learn through school; go to workshops and read books. Learn characterization, plot and dialogue and pacing and word choice and point of view. Then there's also the art of it which is sort of the unknown, the inspiration, the stuff that is noncerebral. — Garth Stein

that his gesture was symbolic, as Serena said. But symbolic of — Garth Stein

One more lap, Denny! One more lap! Faster! — Garth Stein

We all play by the same rules. But some people spend more time reading those rules and figuring out how to make them work in their behalf. — Garth Stein

Your car goes where your eyes go. Simply another way of saying that which you manifest is before you. — Garth Stein