The Old Man and the Sea

by Ernest Hemingway

“Age is my alarm clock,” the old man said. “Why do old men wake so early? Is it to have one longer day?”

It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.

The thousand times that he had proved it meant nothing. Now he was proving it again. Each time was a new time and he never thought about the past when he was doing it.

“But man is not made for defeat,” he said. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.