“The best thing about rock bottom is the rock part. You discover the solid bit of you. The bit that can’t be broken down further. The thing that you might sentimentally call a soul. At our lowest we find the solid ground of our foundation. And we can build ourselves anew.”
“Man, the bravest of animals, and the one most accustomed to suffering, does not repudiate suffering as such; he desires it, he even seeks it out, provided he is shown a meaning for it, a purpose of suffering. The meaninglessness of suffering, not suffering itself, was the curse that lay over mankind so far.”
“This is what ultimately matters: where you end up, not the speed at which you get there, or the number of people you impress with your jittery busyness along the way.”
“How to stop time: kiss. How to travel in time: read. How to escape time: music. How to feel time: write. How to release time: breathe.”
“Maths is the false alarms that play on our minds and the false confidence that helps us sleep at night; the stories pushed at us on social media and the memes that spread through it. Maths is the loopholes in the law and the needle that closes them; the technology that saves lives and the mistakes that put them at risk; the outbreak of a deadly disease and the strategies to control it. It is the best hope we have of answering the most fundamental questions about the enigmas of the Cosmos and the mysteries of our own species.”
“Places have their own characters… But the people begin to look the same.”
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
“Caminé, volé y navegué todo el país cargando mi máquina de escribir portátil Olivetti, el diccionario Larousse Ilustrado de un kilogramo de peso (el Google de ese tiempo), mis mayores esperanzas, media resma de cuartillas y un par de hojas de papel carbón para conservar copias de los escritos que tecleaba a la sombra de los árboles de parques municipales, plazas de mercado, hoteles o en las oficinas de concesionarios que el diario mantenía en todos los pueblos y ciudades para administrar la veloz y poderosa distribución de sus ejemplares. Transité Colombia entera.”
“We believe the one who has power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history, you must ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too.”
“I would love to tell you ultrarunning is that simple: push a little here, pull a little there, reduce this variable, and magically you run faster. Ultrarunning is not marathon running. If I sound like a broken record repeating that throughout this book, it’s for good reason.
In fact, I would like to go on record, right here and right now, and say that the marathon is likely the longest race where pure physiology is the main determinant of performance.”
