Quote

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

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Laura Hillenbrand
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: May 15
Author
Writer
Fairfax
Virginia
Home
Entirely
Rosary
Live
Road
Circuits
Book
Empty
Furniture
Thing
Lived
Carrying
Way
Sleep
Sleeping
Stalls
Men
Books
Chairs
Saddle
Easy
Closest
Saddles
Money
Racing
Circuit

More quotes by Laura Hillenbrand

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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
Laura Hillenbrand
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Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man's soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it.
Laura Hillenbrand
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When he thought of his history, what resonated with him now was not all that he had suffered but the divine love that he believed had intervened to save him.
Laura Hillenbrand
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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
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...maybe it was better to break a man's leg than to break his heart.
Laura Hillenbrand
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Without dignity, identity is erased. In its absence, men are defined not by themselves, but by their captors and the circumstances in which they are forced to live.
Laura Hillenbrand
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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.
Laura Hillenbrand
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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
Laura Hillenbrand
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And at that point, I think my experience in covering the subject helped me. I think editors felt comfortable with the idea of me telling this story because I had demonstrated that I know this business pretty well
Laura Hillenbrand
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I'm attracted to subjects who overcome tremendous suffering and learn to cope emotionally with it
Laura Hillenbrand
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I got sick when I was 19, and I'd been a really healthy 19-year-old, so I don't have a lot to compare it to. Does it feel like the pain after you give birth? I don't know
Laura Hillenbrand
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I have vertigo. Vertigo makes it feel like the floor is pitching up and down. Things seem to be spinning. It's like standing on the deck of a ship in really high seas.
Laura Hillenbrand
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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
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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.
Laura Hillenbrand
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For me, being a writer was never a choice. I was born one. All through my childhood I wrote short stories and stuffed them in drawers. I wrote on everything. I didn't do my homework so I could write
Laura Hillenbrand
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... character reigns preeminent in determining potential.
Laura Hillenbrand
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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
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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.
Laura Hillenbrand
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What God asks of men, said [Billy] Graham, is faith. His invisibility is the truest test of that faith. To know who sees him, God makes himself unseen.
Laura Hillenbrand
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I think authors can get into trouble viewing the subject matter as their turf
Laura Hillenbrand