The Memory of Running

Some quotations from the book that I just finished reading (click link in the column at the right for info):

Sometimes there are moments when a person has to make a decision, opposed to letting things just happen. A person then has to happen himself. (p. 77)

The longer you wait and put off the nice things you should do on a regular basis, the harder it is to do them, until finally you have to force yourself to be nice, to be thoughtful, and it isn’t easy, because you’re embarrassed about not having done those easy, nice things in a natural kind of way. Also, the people who you’re nice to come to expect your regular niceness. That’s it in a nutshell. (p.222)

I put people off. I must…. I knew some people, sure, to nod to if I saw them in Stop & Shop or the drugstore, but as people I could, say, call up at night or go to a movie with…well, I wasn’t connected in that way. It’s a very New Englandy thing, this being alone even though you don’t want to be. It proves, I guess, that you’re above being lonely and can take or leave friendship. So, then, I was a loner who wished not to be alone. It’s something I have thought about and thought about, and I now feel that at any given time there are a lot of lonely loners out there. We just don’t understand the process of making some friends. The complicated format of friendship. It’s not easy. (p. 227)

If I were a person who felt sorry for myself, I’d say that all the time. ‘Poor me. Poor cripple.’ It’s ugly, isn’t it? It’s hateful. That’s why I don’t say it, and that’s why I don’t feel it. Okay, I’m tired. Okay, Bea’s sick. That’s life, Smithy, we can’t get away from that. We have to go on and be strong, and the best way to be strong is to rely on people and be brave enough to trust them. (p. 296)