Running with Sherman Quotes

“Patience and kindness don’t show up on demand; they’re disciplines that require constant practice, and there is no better boot camp for learning those skills than hitching your survival to your ability to discern—and respect—the needs of another creature”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America

“Movement is big medicine; it’s the signal to every cell in our bodies that no matter what kind of damage we’ve suffered, we’re ready to rebuild and move away from death and back toward life. Rest too long after an injury and your system powers down, preparing you for a peaceful exit. Fight your way back to your feet, however, and you trigger that magical ON switch that speeds healing hormones to everything you need to get stronger: your bones, brain, organs, ligaments, immune system, even the digestive bacteria in your belly, all get a molecular upgrade from exercise. For”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America

“You don’t start with today and aim toward your goal. You start with the goal, and aim back toward today. Do it like that, and you’ll always find a way.”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America

“Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy need only one hour of animal-assisted therapy a week to see their depression and anxiety reduced by half.”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America

“Movement is big medicine; it’s the signal to every cell in our bodies that no matter what kind of damage we’ve suffered, we’re ready to rebuild and move away from death and back toward life. Rest too long after an injury and your system powers down, preparing you for a peaceful exit. Fight your way back to your feet, however, and you trigger that magical ON switch that speeds healing hormones to everything you need to get stronger: your bones, brain, organs, ligaments, immune system, even the digestive bacteria in your belly, all get a molecular upgrade from exercise.”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America

“Talkers aren't listeners”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. —Gnostic Gospel of St. Thomas”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America

“Normally, up to 75% of all prisoners who are released will be arrested aging within five years. But among prisoners who’ve worked with animals, the recidivism rate tends to be as low as 10 percent. Pg 69”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman

“Your brain may not remember, but your body will never forget that animals have guarded us since the Stone Age.” Why do you think cuddling a cat is so stinkin’ irresistible?”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman: The Donkey Who Survived Against All Odds and Raced Like a Champion

“Rest too long after an injury and your system powers down, preparing you for a peaceful exit. Fight your way back to your feet, however, and you trigger that magical ON switch that speeds healing hormones to everything you need to get stronger: your bones, brain, organs, ligaments, immune system, even the digestive bacteria in your belly, all get a molecular upgrade from exercise. For that, you can thank your hunter-gatherer ancestors, who evolved to stay alive by staying on the move. Today, movement-as-medicine is a biological truth for survivors of cancer, surgery, strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, brain injuries, depression, you name it.”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America

“There’s a lot I will never adopt from my Amish neighbors (long black pants in summer and a cap on education at eighth-grade spring to mind), but Sam opened my eyes to the difference between rules that hold you back and rules that help you grow. That was why he could read thrillers if he felt like it and had no qualms telling me that he’d seen (and kind of enjoyed) the movie Witness . Amos, our closest neighbor over the hill, dropped in one evening while friends were over for dinner. “This is wine?” he asked, never having seen it before. “Can I try?” Before I could reach for the bottle, he’d filled a water glass to the brim. He drank it off like it was lemonade, then set off to walk tipsily home in the dark. “Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be having that again,” Amos told me the next day. “Not enough evenings in life to spoil another one.” The Amish aren’t closed to the world, he’s saying; they’re just a little more goal-oriented about how much of it to let in.”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman

“I've butchered my own chickens, milked my own goats, and ridden in Amish buggies, and believe me, when it comes to meals and daily commutes, you need only one go-round with those experiences to appreciate how nice it is to have machines take all the gore, udders, and manure off your hands.”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman

“knew that happiness, health, and security come from devoting yourself to two things—your family and your friends—and anything that doesn’t bring you closer to both is pulling you in the wrong direction.”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America

“Wilson called those forces the biophilia hypothesis, which literally means “love of living things” but translates more closely to “Your brain may not remember, but your body will never forget that animals have guarded us since the Stone Age.” Why”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America

“Vella Shpringa—the world’s only Amish running club.”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America

“Community, goals, friendships, a social life,” Hal marvels. “Who knew that running would be his ticket to belonging to something?”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America

“It was eat or be eaten, which meant we couldn’t forget about them for a second. The human nervous system developed as an early-warning animal detection device, scanning 24/7 for any hint of an approaching heartbeat. Animals were simultaneously our dearest friends and our deadliest enemies, and after 300,000 years, you don’t just end a bond like that without paying a price. When we close ourselves off from the natural world, Wilson was convinced, we’re messing with forces we don’t understand. We’re changing our address with no idea where we’re going.”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America

“Movement is big medicine; it’s the signal to every cell in our bodies that no matter what kind of damage we’ve suffered, we’re ready to rebuild and move away from death and back toward life. Rest too long after an injury and your system powers down, preparing you for a peaceful exit. Fight your way back to your feet, however, and you trigger that magical ON switch that speeds healing hormones to everything you need to get stronger: your bones, brain, organs, ligaments, immune system, even the digestive bacteria in your belly, all get a molecular upgrade from exercise. For that,”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America

“Most of us whipsaw back and forth all day, racing to save time so we can sit around and waste it.”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman

“Brain opioids are so powerful that if you exercise, you can lower your “mental health burden” by nearly 25 percent and enjoy a much higher ratio of positive mental health days – a whopping 43 percent – than non-exercisers experience. Let that sink in for a second: just by goofing around a little on your bike, you can nearly double your happiness. For free. If you put results like that in a pill, it would outsell ice cream. Pg 178”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman

“Loveable as he is, Lawrence is a hyperkinetic freak, and the world is far too full of marvels and joys for him to ever do anything except lunge and swerve toward whatever catches his eye.”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman

“Meanwhile, in Boston, Running While Female was literally a crime: any woman who dared attempt the Boston Marathon in the 1960s was subject to arrest by the cops or, if your dad was in charge, a beating. “If that girl were my daughter, I would spank her,” race director Will Cloney famously snarled after Kathrine Switzer finagled her way onto the course in 1967.”
― Christopher McDougall, Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America