Quotes from The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

Let me just say, this book was an emotional roller coaster (and unlike Augustus Waters' roller coaster, which only went up, this one goes up, down, upside down, and sideways). It was one of those books that's so well written that you find yourself investing heavily in the characters - and then something happens and it's so frustrating that you feel the sudden urge to tear out the offending page (am I the only who feels like this? ... Well, that's embarrassing) but you don't because you have to keep reading. 

Anyways, here are some of the better quotes from the book:

"Monkeys have thumbs. Practically the dumbest species on the planet, next to the duck-billed platypus, who make their dens underwater even though they breathe air. The platypus is horribly stupid, but is only slightly dumber than a monkey. Yet monkeys have thumbs. Those monkey-thumbs were meant for dogs. Give me my thumbs, you fucking monkeys!"

"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."

"Your car goes where your eyes go. Simply another way of saying that which you manifest is before you. I know it's true; racing doesn't lie."

"The race is long. It is better to drive within oneself and finish the race behind the other than it is to drive too hard and crash."

"Alignment, late-breaking, locking up, toe-in: mere jargon. These are simply terms we use to explain the phenomena around us. What matters is not how precisely we can explain the  event, but the event itself and its consequence."

"That which is around me does not affect my mood; my mood affects that which is around me."

"Here's why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot speak, so I listen very well. I will 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 conversation constantly."

"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."

"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 a beautiful sunrise, but I will never consider the sun a champion for having risen."

"So much of language is unspoken. So much of language is comprised of looks and gestures and sounds that are not words. People are ignorant of the vast complexity of their own communication."

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

"There is no dishonor in losing the race. There is only dishonor in not racing because you are afraid to lose."