Top 100 Garth Stein Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “That which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.”

— Garth Stein

2. “This is a rule of racing: No race has ever been won in the first corner; many have been lost there.”

— Garth Stein

3. “There is no dishonor in losing the race. There is only dishonor in not racing because you are afraid to lose.”

— Garth Stein

4. “That which you manifest is before you. The visible becomes inevitable. Your car goes where your eyes go.”

— Garth Stein

5. “To live every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live.”

— Garth Stein

6. “That which we manifest is before us.”

— Garth Stein

7. “That which is around me does not affect my mood; my mood affects that which is around me.”

— Garth Stein

8. “In racing, they say that your car goes where your eyes go. The driver who cannot tear his eyes away from the wall as he spins out of control will meet that wall; the driver who looks down the track as he feels his tires break free will regain control of his vehicle.”

— Garth Stein

9. “The true hero is flawed. The true test of a champion is not whether he can triumph, but whether he can overcome obstacles – preferably of his own making – in order to triumph.”

— Garth Stein

10. “We are the creators of our own destiny.”

— Garth Stein

11. “You should shine with all of your light all the time.”

— Garth Stein

12. “People are always worried about what’s happening next. They often find it difficult to stand still, to occupy the now without worrying about the future. People are generally not satisfied with what they have; they are very concerned with what they are going to have.”

— Garth Stein

13. “To separate oneself from the burden, the angst, the anguish that we all encounter everyday. To say I am alive, I am wonderful, I am. I am. That is something to aspire to.”

— Garth Stein

14. “The human language, as precise as it is with its thousands of words, can still be so wonderfully vague.”

— Garth Stein

15. “Sometimes things change, and we have to change, too.”

— Garth Stein

16. “The car goes where the eyes go.”

— Garth Stein

17. “Somewhere, the zebra is dancing.”

— Garth Stein

18. “It makes one realize that the physicality if our world is a boundary to us only if our will is weak; a true champion can accomplish things that a normal person would think impossible.”

— Garth Stein

19. “Because memory is time folding back on itself. To remember is to disengage from the present. In order to reach any kind of success in automobile racing, a driver must never remember.”

— Garth Stein

20. “No race has ever been won in the first corner,” he said. “But plenty of races have been lost there.” I.”

— Garth Stein

21. “We had a good run, and now it’s over; what’s wrong with that?”

— Garth Stein

22. “Racing is about discipline and intelligence, not about who has the heavier foot. The one who drives smart will always win in the end.”

— Garth Stein

23. “The race is long. It is better to drive within oneself and finish the race behind the other than it is to drive too hard and crash.”

— Garth Stein

24. “He died that day because his body had served its purpose. His soul had done what it came to do, learned what it came to learn, and then was free to leave.”

— Garth Stein

25. “She was my rain. She was my unpredictable element. She was my fear. But a racer should not be afraid of rain; a racer should embrace the rain.”

— Garth Stein

26. “Your car goes where your eyes go. Lonliness is unable to survive without a willing host.”

— Garth Stein

27. “I suddenly realized. The zebra. It is not something outside of us. The zebra is something inside of us. Our fears. Our own self-destructive nature. The zebra is the worst part of us when we are face-to-face with our worst times. The demon is us!”

— Garth Stein

28. “In documentary films, you’re a storyteller using found objects. You still have to have a story arc and all the elements that make a good story. It really helped me mature as a storyteller.”

— Garth Stein

29. “To finish the race first, you must first finish the race.”

— Garth Stein

30. “Yet for every peak there is a valley.”

— Garth Stein

31. “My soul has learned what it came to learn, and all the other things are just things. We can’t have everything we want. Sometimes, we simply have to believe.”

— Garth Stein

32. “The sun rises every day. What is to love? Lock the sun in a box. Force the sun to overcome adversity in order to rise. Then we will cheer! I will often admire beautiful sunrise, but I will never consider the sun a champion for having risen.”

— Garth Stein

33. “Inside each of us resides the truth, I began, the absolute truth. But sometimes the truth is hidden in a hall of mirrors. Sometimes we believe we are viewing the real thing, when in fact we are viewing a facsimile, a distortion.”

— Garth Stein

34. “Very gently. Like there are eggshells on your pedals, and you don’t want to break them. That’s how you drive in the rain.”

— Garth Stein

35. “To be a champion, you must have no ego at all. You must not exist as a separate entity. You must give yourself over to the race. You are nothing if not for your team, your car, your shoes, your tires. Do not mistake confidence and self-awareness for egotism.”

— Garth Stein

36. “Gestures are all that I have; sometimes they must be grand in nature.”

— Garth Stein

37. “It’s so hard to communicate because there are so many moving parts. There’s presentation and there’s interpretation and they’re so dependent on each other it makes things very difficult.”

— Garth Stein

38. “We too, must shatter the mirrors. We must look in to ourselves and root out the distortions until that thing which we know in our hearts is perfect and true, stands before us.”

— Garth Stein

39. “I’ve always felt almost human. I’ve always known that there’s something about me that’s different than other dogs. Sure, I’m stuffed into a dog’s body, but that’s just the shell. It’s what’s inside that’s important. The soul. And my soul is very human.”

— Garth Stein

40. “Any problems that may occur have ultimately been caused by you, because you are responsible for where you are and what you are doing there.”

— Garth Stein

41. “Learn to listen! I beg of you. Pretend you are a dog like me and listen to other people rather than steal their stories.”

— Garth Stein

42. “Using a dog as a narrator has limitations and it has advantages. The limitations are that a dog cannot speak. A dog has no thumbs. A dog can’t communicate his thoughts except with gestures.”

— Garth Stein

43. “But trust me when I tell you that the zebra is real. Somewhere, the zebra is dancing.”

— Garth Stein

44. “I’m a writer because I love reading. I love the conversation between a reader and a writer, and that it all takes place in a book-sort of a neutral ground. A writer puts down the words, and a reader interprets the words, and every reader will read a book differently. I love that.”

— Garth Stein

45. “More wine helps; it takes the edge off the despair.”

— Garth Stein

46. “The visible becomes inevitable...”

— Garth Stein

47. “But what is worse, smelling the roast and not feasting, or not smelling the roast at all?”

— Garth Stein

48. “I’ll give you a theory: Man’s closest relative is not the chimpanzee, as the TV people believe, but is, in fact, the dog.”

— Garth Stein

49. “Your car goes where your eyes go. Simply another way of saying that you make your own destiny.”

— Garth Stein

50. “I had always wanted to love Eve as Denny loved her, but I never had because I was afraid. She was my rain. She was my unpredictable element. She was my fear. But a racer should not be afraid of the rain; a racer should embrace the rain. I, alone, could manifest a change around me. By changing my mood, my energy, I allowed Eve to regard me differently. And while I cannot say that I am a master of my own destiny, I can say that I have experienced a glimpse of mastery, and I know what I have to work toward.”

— Garth Stein