Runner Quotes

“You've always been a tourist here. You just didn't know it.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“I am a runner. That's what I do. That's who I am. Running is all I know, or want, or care about.”
― Wendelin Van Draanen, The Running Dream

“I was running and deliberately lost my way. The world far off and nothing but my breath and the very next step and it’s like hypnosis. The feeling of conquering my own aliveness with no task but to keep going, making every way the right away and that’s a metaphor for everything.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving

“If thou art indeed my father, then hast thou stained thy sword in the life-blood of thy son. And thous didst it of thine obstinacy. For I sought to turn thee unto love, and I implored of thee thy name, for I thought to behold in thee the tokens recounted of my mother. But I appealed unto thy heart in vain, and now is the time gone for meeting.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“To be a runner is to learn continual life lessons.”
― Martin Dugard, To Be a Runner: How Racing Up Mountains, Running with the Bulls, or Just Taking on a 5-K Makes You a Better Person and the World a Better Place

“I ope ya don't mind, Charlie, but I borrowed one a ya effs.'
'Ya did?'
'Yeah.' he smiled. 'I told 'im to start finkin' smart.”
― Robert Newton

“To be a runner is to learn continual life lessons. To be a coach is not just to teach these lessons but also to feel them in the core of your marrow. The very act of surpassing personal limits in training and racing will bend the mind and body toward a higher purpose for the rest of my runners' lives. Settling for mediocrity-settling instead of pushing-those who learn to be the best version of themselves know the secret to a full life.”
― Martin Dugard

“I had never felt more alive, more happy to be living in the moment. My suffering stood on the horizon, like the mountain, contrasting comfort. It stood starkly against familiarity, above old limitations, and towered over complacency. The mountains added the beauty and depth to the landscape around me. I was pushing into a totally new realm and pushing towards my dream of testing my limits. It did not feel pleasant, not in this hour, but I forced myself to run the last mile.”
― Rob Steger, Training For Ultra: Ultra Running Stories From the Middle of the Pack

“She ran as the first maples started to change color, then the oak.
She jumped over roots, she sidestepped brambles, her footfalls echoing off plank bridges traversing streams.
She was the first person at practice. The last to go home.
She ran for speed. She ran for distance. She stretched carefully first thing in the morning and last thing before bed.”
― C. D. Bell, Weregirl

“The Runner’s Prayer

I pray that I may run,
Until my dying day.
And when it comes to my last race,
I then most humbly pray:
When checking in for the Lord’s great race,
And standing there a sinner,
That God in his mercy finds me,
Qualified to enter.”
― Randy L. Thurman, One More Step the 638 Best Quotes for the Runner: Motivation for the Next Step!

“There is a tremendous amount of farting in prison.”
― Charlie Engle

“And, finally, I run because there's no better way to see the sun rise and set.”
― Amby Burfoot, The Runner's Guide to the Meaning of Life

“A runner is always attempting to control everything- time, energy, form, workouts, food intake, hydration- yet simultaneously conscious that she shouldn’t become controlled by any one variable. She is the agent. It’s as if each discipline is a necklace, and a runner must know when to put one on, when to take one off, when she can handle more than one, when she can’t . If all runners lose this talent for calibration, they end up wearing all the necklaces at once, and they sink. In other words, the art of elite running is often about the negative space. It’s less about knowing when to run; more about knowing when not to.”
― Kate Fagan, What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen

“He is busy running. He runs away from the truth, from his old wounds, from himself, or after something like wealth, power, or fame.”
― Lala Agni, I JUST WANT YOU TO REMEMBER: A Story About The Eternal Love Of Twin Flames And So Much More

“From one side what Steve Jobs has planted in his brain "That everyday is his last day..." - is a great idea and I can support it. But to think that everyday will be your last they won't be some kind a wanting to die soon or to be more close to say to fate "Come here, I want to die. Please take first my soul then the other people soul?". Sometimes by doing this and saying in my mind I feel like this I challange the fate. You can check out the film about Paul Averhoff - Check out what this guy has done he is runner, but look what happen in his life!”
― Deyth Banger

“I am a good runner. There are many faster, but not so many for whom it has been as necessary to learn to become nothing but flight.”
― Peter S. Beagle, The Innkeeper's Song

“Run! Life's too short to walk. Unless you don't know where you're running to, then move very slowly.”
― Neil A. Hogan

“I'm just scared I won't run as fast as I did my freshman year,' I admitted, choking back tears.
Coach Woj looked at me for a moment, his eye gentle.
'You don't have to.”
― Rachael Rose Steil, Running in Silence: My Drive for Perfection and the Eating Disorder That Fed It

“Every Saturday, heat or cold, rain or shine, Milly would see Avery running up their road, her long blond ponytail swishing in time with her legs, just as the sun was making gemstones out of the fields and the hills and the bales of hay scattered across the landscape. Twiss would still be snoring away upstairs. Years of sleep remedies had failed to subdue her; she still slept like a wild animal and woke like one, too.
On warm mornings, Milly would take her cup of tea out to the porch to watch Avery run by. Though she'd never been a runner herself- she didn't like the sensation of breathlessness, or the hard thunk of her heart- she'd loved to watch Twiss run. And Avery was an even better runner than Twiss had been, and certainly more graceful. She'd run first on the Spring Green high school team and then on the university team and now was training to run the marathon in the Olympic trials.
In an interview, when a reporter from the 'Gazette' asked her why she ran, Avery said, "Why does anybody do anything?" which had made Milly like Avery even more.
Each Saturday morning, after she passed the driveway, Avery would pick up speed in order to crest the upcoming hills. Sometimes she ran with a yellow music player and matching headphones, but most of the time, she ran without them.
"Something comes in and something goes out," Avery had added in the interview, as if she'd been playing at being coy but couldn't really play when it came to running. "I'd keep running forever if my legs would let me."
"Tell me about the routes you run in Spring Green," the reporter had said.
"My favorite is my Saturday route," Avery said. "There's this little purple meadow I pass on my way up into the hills. When I was little, my grandpa used to say it was enchanted. He said if you walked through it, you'd never be the same person again."
"Where did he hear the story?" the reporter asked.
"I guess he used to know the people who lived in that house," Avery said.
"The bird sisters?" the reporter said.
"All I know is, when I pass that meadow, suddenly I can run faster," Avery said.
"Are you superstitious?"
"I visualize the meadow during all of my races, if that's what you mean."
"Have you ever walked through it?"
"I believe in it too much," Avery said.
"Can you be more specific?" the reporter asked.
"No," Avery said.”
― Rebecca Rasmussen, The Bird Sisters

“Daca sportul e bun si la altceva decat la ficat, inima si circulatie, atunci e ca sa uneasca pentru o pauza, sa creeze emotia aia care ne reaminteste ca suntem oameni, ca putem rade si plange de tristete sau de bucurie.”
― Tibi Ușeriu

“She didn’t see what everyone else saw. She was too busy fighting for more; for the next victory, in whatever shape it might come- as small as counting the exact number of steps in a flight of stairs, as big as getting in the Ivy League. For a moment, sometimes longer, these victories slowed the treadmill on which her mind churned, the one that made her feel she could never keep up.”
― Kate Fagan, What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen

“Exercise can so easily, so quickly, and so greatly change our mood that some people would not have killed themselves, if they had run to the place to which they went to kill themselves.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Speed of light and limb, her father used to say, and although her head throbbed, although she had to clutch the railings sometimes to stop from falling, Vivien was a good runner, and she refused to stop. She imagined herself a wallaby, scooting through the bush; a dingo, slinking in the shadows; a lizard, sneaking in the dark...”
― Kate Morton, The Secret Keeper

“Pablo Picasso famously said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” There is truth in that thought. Considering my own experience, I tailored it a little: every child is a runner. The problem is how to remain a runner once we grow up.”
― Rob Steger, Training For Ultra: Ultra Running Stories From the Middle of the Pack

“Resting when you are tired at mountain races is unwise until you reach lower altitudes, I have learned.”
― Rob Steger, Training For Ultra: Ultra Running Stories From the Middle of the Pack

“There is no finish like the one you questioned.”
― Rob Steger, Training For Ultra: Ultra Running Stories From the Middle of the Pack

“Training, doing something for myself, makes me happier and more appreciative of the time I have with my son. Being a runner makes me a better mother, and being a mother makes my running better.”
― Kara Goucher

“l am sincerely sorry for all the wrongdoings I have done, from past to present. I take accountability to all of those and use these as lessons for me to become a better person. Thank you and I am sorry.”
― Yavonne

“A good runner can't run away from himself.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov