Contents

Atomic Habits - James Clear

  • “We all deal with setbacks but in the long run, the quality of our lives often depends on the quality of our habits.” (7)
  • “A very small shift in direction can lead to a very meaningful change in destination.” (17)

Best Seat in the House - Jack Nicklaus II & Don Yeager

  • “Mom has always said men are simple, and they need three things: food, love, and encouragement – and they will be fine.” (95)
  • “You never know what other people are going through in their lives. Even a small interaction when passing someone on a sidewalk can entirely change a person’s day. Being respectful, appreciative, kind, caring, and listening to and learning from your friends, family, and strangers is very important. As big as our world is, it truly is small.” (122)

Let My People Go Surfing - Yvon Chouinard

  • “If we could all come to see our consumer products as tools that help us to live our real lives – rather than as substitutes and surrogates for that life – we would need many fewer products to be happy. (Naomi Klein, XI)

Why We Run: A Natural History - Bernd Heinrich

  • “… it turns out that what you have is less important than what you do with it.” (83)
  • “The mind leads, the body follow.” (126)
  • “Running is perhaps the most fundamental of all sports, and it is economically the least costly to perform. As a consequence, it is the most democratic and most competitive of all sports because individual merit can prevail despite economic inequality. It is a sport for everyone, the whole world over.” (193)
  • “Sure, it’s genetic. But nobody could rationally propose that European women are not equally genetically endowed to be able to do precisely the same. They just don’t have the same exposure to a culture that fosters the practice from very early childhood and then channels development … Talent is not enough.” (195)
  • “The talent lies not in our genes but in our minds.” (196)
  • “Ultimately we are shaped by the anvil of our environment and the hammer of our mind, if used.” (197)
  • “To psych oneself up takes self-delusion … At that point, one needs faith – a combination of ignorance, deliberate blindness, hope, and optimism. It defies logic yet makes us able to strive and to survive.” (250)
  • “Now if you are going to win the battle, you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. The body can only handle little steps. The mind can take great leaps.” (254)
  • “The cup is full. It contains what I had put into it. Like catching an antelope, the best things in life that we can experience are served on the challenge to endure and to overcome in the long run.” (259)
  • “One learns more from one’s mistakes than from one’s successes, and I therefore concentrate on them.” (264)
  • “Running has saved his life … He had won big. His brain had done it. He thought he could do it, and did it. He could have been dead wrong. I also feel that I owe much to my running – my education, my health, and maybe my life.” (266)