Quotes by Christopher McDougall

“If you don't think you were born to run you're not only denying history. You're denying who you are.”

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up," Bannister said. "It knows it must outrun the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster ...”

“There are two goddesses in your heart, he told them. The Goddess of Wisdom and the Goddess of Wealth. Everyone thinks they need to get wealth first, and wisdom will come. So they concern themselves...”

“Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain.”

“But you can't muscle through a five-hour run that way; you have to relax into it like easing your body into a hot bath, until it no longer resists the shock and begins to enjoy it.”

“The Tarahumara would party like this all night, then rouse themselves the next morning to face off in a running race that could last not two miles, not two hours, but two full days. According to th...”

“But yeah, Ann [Trason] insisted, running was romantic; and no, of course her friends didn't get it because they'd never broken through. For them, running was a miserable two miles motivated solely ...”

“Faced with the almost inescapable conclusion that it had been selling lemons, Nike shifted into make-lemonade mode. Jeff Pisciotta became head of a top-secret and seemingly impossible project: find...”

“The words of the social critic Eric Hoffer were ringing true: "Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and turns into a racket.”

“We say the rarajipari is the game of life, Angel said. You never know how hard it will be. You never know when it will end. You can't control it. You can only adjust.”

“You ran to eat and to avoid being eaten; you ran to find a mate and impress her, and with her you ran off to start a new life together. You had to love running or you wouldn't live to love anything...”

“Don't fight the trail, take what it gives you. If you have a choice between one step or two between rocks, take three.”

“But there's a problem," Dr. Bramble said. He tapped his forehad. "And it's right up here." Our greatest talent, he explained, also created the monster that could destroy us. "Unlike any other organ...”

“After all, what else did we have going for us? Nothing, except we ran like crazy and stuck together. Humans are among the most comunal and cooperative of all primates; our sole defense in a fang-fi...”

“If you can run six miles on a summer day then you, my friend, are a lethal weapon in the animal kingdom. We can dump heat on the run, but animals can't pant while they gallop.”

“Think Easy, Light, Smooth, and Fast. You start with easy, because if that's all you get, that's not so bad. Then work on light. Make it efforthless, like you don't give a shit how high the hill is ...”

“The reason we race isn't so much to beat each other, he understood, but to be with each other.”

“There are two goddesses in your heart,” he told them. “The Goddess of Wisdom and the Goddess of Wealth. Everyone thinks they need to get wealth first, and wisdom will come. So they concern themselv...”