m > m's Quotes

“With each passing day soccer carves a larger scoop of my life. I love it for what it gives me: praise, affection, and, above all, attention. When I'm on the field I don't have to plead to be noticed, either silently or aloud; it is a natural by-product of my talent. I loathe it for the same reason, terrified that soccer is the only worthwile thing about me, that stripping it from my identity might make me disappear. My future teammate and friend Mia Hamm will one day offer this advice: "Somewhere behind the athlete you've become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back... play for her."

I am not, and never will be, that little girl. Already I know I'm incapable of falling in love with the game itself--only with the validation that comes from mastering it, from bending it to my will.”
― Abby Wambach, Forward: A Memoir

“No one has ever spoken to me like that in my life, and I gratefully internalize every word. I'm tired of hearing about my talent and am desperate to know my flaws; I want to corner and confront them and coax them into improvement. I want to be better, if only because being better ensures more attention.”
― Abby Wambach, Forward: A Memoir

“One of the like-minded, badass women I've been speaking to offers a metaphor that perfectly captures this moment in my life. We're talking about retirement and transitions, the challenges involved in letting go of the only work and life you've ever known. Trapeze artists are so amazing in so many ways, she says, because they are grounded to one rung for a long time, and in order to get to the other rung they have to let go. What makes them so brilliant and beautiful and courageous and strong is that they execute flips in the middle. The middle is their magic. And if you're brave enough to let go of that first rung, she concludes, you can create your own magic in the middle.”
― Abby Wambach, Forward: A Memoir

“I meditate with my mala beads and ask myself hard questions: "Can I accept responsability for the things that happened, the things I created? Can I accept responsability for the hurt I've caused? That's why people get divorced--because they can't deal with the sad feelings they created. And until you can get right and accept the fact that you've shattered somebody, that you've broken their heart in more ways than one, there's no way that you've ever going to be able to survive.”
― Abby Wambach, Forward: A Memoir

“Not to know. Not to remember.
With this one hope:
That beyond the River Lethe, there is memory, healed.”
― Czeslaw Milosz, The Collected Poems 1931-1987

“Learning does not make one learned: there are those who have knowledge and those who have understanding. The first requires memory and the second philosophy.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Así se reanudó una amistad prohibida que por lo menos una vez se pareció al amor. Hablaban hasta el amanecer, sin ilusiones ni despecho, como un viejo matrimonio condenado a la rutina. Creían ser felices, y tal vez lo eran, hasta que uno de los dos decía una palabra de más, o daba un paso de menos, y la noche se pudría en un pleito de vándalos que desmoralizaba a los mastines. Todo volvía entonces al principio, y Dulce Olivia desaparecía de la casa por largo tiempo.”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, Of Love and Other Demons

“Am I in love? --yes, since I am waiting. The other one never waits. Sometimes I want to play the part of the one who doesn't wait; I try to busy myself elsewhere, to arrive late; but I always lose at this game. Whatever I do, I find myself there, with nothing to do, punctual, even ahead of time. The lover's fatal identity is precisely this: I am the one who waits.”
― Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

“Most people don't even try to get what they want because of the painful reckoning with their parents it entails.”
― Alison Bechdel, The Secret to Superhuman Strength

“You wouldn't believe the kind of person I could become if you wanted it.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Felice