Gerald

“But for all its miseries, there was an unmistakable allure to the jockey's craft... Man is preoccupied with freedom yet laden with handicaps. The breadth of his activity and experience is narrowed by the limitations of his relative weak, sluggish body. The racehorse, by virtue of his awesome physical gifts, freed the jockey from himself. When a horse and a jockey flew over the tack together, there were moments in which the man's mind wedded itself to the animal's body to form something greater than the sum of both parts. The horse partook of the jockey's cunning; the jockey partook of the horse's supreme power. For the jockey, the saddle was a place of unparalled exhilaration, of transcendence.”
― Laura Hillenbrand

“That's the funny thing about America--the blessed thing. As many people as there are to hold you back, there are angels whose humanity makes up for all the others. I've had my share of angels.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“As Stephanie and Lula were going after the bad guys, Lula was making preparations from the trunk of her Firebird. Stephanie looked inside and stopped breathing for a beat. "That's a rocket launcher!" "Yep," Lula said. "It's a big boy. I got it at a yard sale in the projects.”
― Janet Evanovich, Explosive Eighteen

“The crookedness of the serpent is still straight enough to slide through the snake hole.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone