I identified in a very deep way with the individuals I was writing about because the theme that runs through this story is of extraordinary hardship and the will to overcome it.

I am in an altogether new world now. I can think of nothing more wonderful. It is a real touch of all that heaven means.

This self-respect and sense of self-worth, the innermost armament of the soul, lies at the heart of humanness; to be deprived of it is to be dehumanized, to be cleaved from, and cast below, mankind.

I am disabled, so I can't travel, and I have not been to any development meetings, but Gary and the others affiliated with the film keep me updated on everything.

Books on horse racing subjects have never done well, and I am told that publishers had come to think of them as the literary version of box office poison

Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen.

In terms of writing about horses, I fell backwards into that. I was intent on getting a Ph.D., becoming a professor, and writing on history but I got sick 14 years ago when I was 19. Getting sick derailed that plan completely