The Cost of These Dreams: Sports Stories and Other Serious Business

Over and over we learn the value of a selfless father and the dangers of a selfish one.

The tools required to gain greatness often prevent someone from enjoying it.

The most interesting place exists between how people see themselves and how other people do.

success means reaching your goals and enjoying them and that one without the other is empty and meaningless.

I realized that his work was a means to an end and not the supreme and total end.

It seems to me that the point of studying other people, whether through a sports story or a novel or a song or a movie, is to organize our thoughts and construct a framework that might help us better understand ourselves.

There’s a fable about returning Roman generals who rode in victory parades through the streets of the capital; a slave stood behind them, whispering in their ears, “All glory is fleeting.”

He paid a price for his fame, just as the men who fought him paid a price for their brush with it. Nothing is free.

Nobody who is great at something is normal. They are all pushed, or pulled, by things that rarely break the surface. Often those things are memories of who they used to be, and where.

“What I do today is very important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it.”

“Building takes passion and energy,” Meyer says. “Maintenance is awful. It’s nothing but fatigue. Once you reach the top, maintaining that beast is awful.”

They were both young and invincible then, blind to how much could be taken away.

All sons, whether they love or hate their fathers, or some combination of both, want to cleanse themselves of any inherited weakness, shaking free from the past.

“You perform to get your goodies,” Chris says. “You can psychologically know your issues, but the key is: Can you change the habits?”

“To influence people, appeal to their dreams and aspirations, not just their needs.”