The collection / 55 fragments

The living archive

Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

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 / quote

02Undated

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 / quote

03Undated

... 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 / quote

04Undated

Often things happen to race cars in the heat of the race. A square-toothed gear in a transmission may break, suddenly leaving the driver without all of his gears. Or perhaps a clutch fails. Brakes go soft from overheating. Suspensions break. When faced with one of theseproblems, the poor driver crashes. The average driver gives up. The great drivers drive through the problem. They figure out a way to continue racing. Like in the Luxembourg Grand Prix in 1989, when the Irish racer Kevin Finnerty York finished the race victoriously and later revealed that he had driven the final twenty laps of the race with only two gears! To be able to possess a machine in such a way is the ultimate show of determination and awareness. It makes one realize that the physicality of our world is a boundary to us only if our will is weak; a true champion can accomplish things that a normal person would think impossible.

Garth Stein / quote

05Undated

Here's why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot speak so I listen very well. I never interrupt, I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. 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 / quote

06Undated

You’re scaring the dog,” Trish pointed out. She rarely called me by name. They do that inprisoner of war camps, I’ve heard. Depersonalization.

Garth Stein / quote

07Undated

I hear hundreds of years of life. I hear wind and rain and fire and beetles. I hear the seasons changing and birds and squirrels. I hear the life of the trees this wood came from.

Garth Stein / quote