Happiness is different from pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing.

We may think there is willpower involved, but more likely... change is due to want power. Wanting the new addiction more than the old one. Wanting the new me in preference to the person I am now.

If you want to find the answers to the Big Questions about your soul, you'd best begin with the Little Answers about your body.

If marathoners finish they win.

For every runner who tours the world running marathons, there are thousands who run to hear leaves and listen to rain and look to the day when it all is suddenly as easy as a bird in flight.

Like everyone else, I want to be challenged. I want to find out whether or not I am a coward. I want to see how much effort I can put out . . . what I can endure . . . if I measure up. Running allows that.

The desire to run comes from deep within us — from the unconscious, the intuitive, the instinctive. And that desire becomes a passion when the runner learns to race. Then, the race becomes all — the lovemaking of the runner.