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Seabiscuit: An American Legend QUOTES

Seabiscuit: An American Legend QUOTES

1 " He had no money and no home; he lived entirely on the road of the racing circuit, sleeping in empty stalls, carrying with him only a saddle, his rosary, and his books....The books were the closest thing he had to furniture, and he lived in them the way other men live in easy chairs. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

2 " ... the little horse had drawn more newspaper coverage in 1938 than Roosevelt, who was second, Hitler (third), Mussolini (fourth), or any other newsmaker. His match with War Admiral was almost certainly the single biggest news story of the year and one of the biggest sports moments of the century. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

3 " To pilot a racehorse is to ride a half-ton catapult. It is without question one of the most formidable feats in sport. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

4 " The weather was clear, the track fast
War Admiral broke first and finished last. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

5 " The whole country is divided into two camps," wrote Dave Boone in the San Francisco Chronicle. "People who never saw a horse race in their lives are taking sides. If the issue were deferred another week, there would be a civil war between the War Admiral Americans and the Seabiscuit Americans. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

6 " There's more than one thing I can't do and there are a lot more things than that that you can't do or you wouldn't be in the newspaper business. You'd be a jockey and a scholar and a connoisseur of femininity like I am "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

7 " His books were the closest thing he had to furniture and he lived in them the way other men live in easy chairs. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

8 " ...maybe it was better to break a man's leg than to break his heart. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

9 " It's easy to talk to a horse if you understand his language. Horses stay the same from the day they are born until the day they die. They are only changed by the way people treat them. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

10 " ... character reigns preeminent in determining potential. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

11 " In 1938... the year's #1 newsmaker was not FDR, Hitler, or Mussolini. Nor was it Lou Gehrig or Clark Gable. The subject of the most newspaper column inches in 1938 wasn't even a person. It was an undersized, crooked-legged racehorse named Seabiscuit. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

12 " He (Thomas Smith) believed with complete conviction that no animal was permanently ruined. Every horse could be improved. He lived by a single maxim: 'Learn your horse. Each one is an individual, and once you penetrate his mind and heart, you can often work wonders with an otherwise intractable beast. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

13 " Horses stay the same from the day they are born until the day they die. . . . They are only changed by the way people treat them. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

14 " The racehorse, by virtue of his awesome physical gifts, freed the jockey from himself. When a horse and a jockey flew over the track 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. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

15 " We had to rebuild him, both mentally and physically, but you don't have to rebuild the heart when it's already there, big as all outdoors. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

16 " So long,Charley. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

17 " Old Pops and I have got four good legs between us,” he said. “Maybe that’s enough. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

18 " A Thoroughbred racehorse is one of God's most impressive engines. Tipping the scales at up to 1,450 pounds, he can sustain speeds of forty miles per hour. Equipped with reflexes much faster than those of the most quick-wired man, he swoops over as much as twenty-eight feet of earth in a single stride, and corners on a dime. His body is a paradox of mass and lightness, crafted to slip through air with the ease of an arrow. His mind is impressed with a single command: run. He pursues speed with superlative courage, pushing beyond defeat, beyond exhaustion, sometimes beyond the structural limits of bone and sinew. In flight, he is nature's ultimate wedding of form and purpose. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

19 " The autos alone remained to conquer space. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend

20 " He grasped for hope in Emerson's vision of natural polarities, in which all things are balanced by their opposites—darkness by light, cold by heat, loss by gain. "

― Laura Hillenbrand , Seabiscuit: An American Legend