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029c275
|
"Hello, Max," he said quietly, searching my face. "How do you feel?" Which was a ten on the "imbecilic question" scale of one to ten. Why, I feel fine, Jeb," I said brightly. "How about you?"
|
|
world
extreme
jeb
maximum
max
other
ride
saving
sports
|
James Patterson |
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12d5442
|
The thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football.
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|
soccer
sports
|
Terry Pratchett |
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4d6fe24
|
I later discovered that in order to be a good athlete one must care intensely what is happening with a ball, even if one doesn't have possession of it. This was ultimately my failure: my inability to work up a passion for the location of balls.
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sports
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Haven Kimmel |
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5a43f91
|
I think all of us are looking for that which does not admit of bullshit . . . If you tell me you can bench press 450, hell, we'll load up the bar and put you under it. Either you can do it or you can't do it--you can't bullshit. Ultimately, sports are just about as close to what one would call the truth as it is possible to get in this world.
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|
truth
bullshit
sports
|
Harry Crews |
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b07f2e5
|
Outcasts may grow up to be novelists and filmmakers and computer tycoons, but they will never be the athletic ruling class.
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|
sports
|
Chuck Klosterman |
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99834bb
|
Books are, let's face it, better than everything else. If we played Cultural Fantasy Boxing League, and made books go fifteen rounds in the ring against the best that any other art form had to offer, then books would win pretty much every time.
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|
reading
humor
love-of-reading
culture
sports
|
Nick Hornby |
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da1d28e
|
(Baseball) is a game with a lot of waiting in it; it is a game with increasingly heightened anticipation of increasingly limited action
|
|
sports
|
John Irving |
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9e75af9
|
There's something about sports. You can be setting fire to cats and burying them in your backyard, but as long as you're playing team sports, people think you're okay.
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sports
|
Polly Horvath |
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5fa727b
|
Reading...is a full-contact sport; we crash up against the wave of words with all of our intellectual, imaginative, and emotional resources.
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reading
sports
|
Thomas C. Foster |
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b68dc1a
|
She's a Texan, born and raised. Football is in our blood.
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|
sports
|
Simone Elkeles |
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05edcba
|
"...I've spent the last fifteen years of my life railing against the game of soccer, an exercise that has been lauded as "the sport of the future" since 1977. Thankfully, that future dystopia has never come."
|
|
future
humor
soccer
sports
|
Chuck Klosterman |
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2632579
|
"Like all the other arrivals to the tournament, Hank had erected a banner in front. It was a long, tapering pennant with a blue and red circular design in the center and the words GO CUBS! on both sides. Interesting," said Hugo. "What does it mean?" It was a gift from Sam," Hank explained as they entered the tent. "He said it used to represent Triumph over Adversity, but now better represents Impossible Quests and Lost Causes." I think I preferred not knowing that," said Hugo. Hank grinned. "You're a Sox fan too, hey?"
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|
sports
|
James A. Owen |
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24d2bff
|
The guys who play it [soccer] are kinda dumb. Why don't they just kick the crap out of the guy in front of the net? Then they could score all they want.
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|
soccer
sports
|
Tite Kubo |
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b002d30
|
Sports just happen to be excellent for avoiding foreign-language stage fright and developing lasting friendships while still sounding like Tarzan.
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|
language
tarzan
sports
|
Timothy Ferriss |
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781a30d
|
For several years Quinn had been having the same conversations with this man, whose name he did not know. Once, when he had been in the luncheonette, they had talked about baseball, and now, each time Quinn came in, they continued to talk about it. In the winter, the talk was of trades, predictions, memories. During the season, it was always the most recent game. They were both Mets fans, and the hopelessness of that passion had created a bond between them.
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|
hopelessness
sports
|
Paul Auster |
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cc22bbd
|
"New Rule: Americans must realize what makes NFL football so great: socialism. That's right, the NFL takes money from the rich teams and gives it to the poorer one...just like President Obama wants to do with his secret army of ACORN volunteers. Green Bay, Wisconsin, has a population of one hundred thousand. Yet this sleepy little town on the banks of the Fuck-if-I-know River has just as much of a chance of making it to the Super Bowl as the New York Jets--who next year need to just shut the hell up and play. Now, me personally, I haven't watched a Super Bowl since 2004, when Janet Jackson's nipple popped out during halftime. and that split-second glimpse of an unrestrained black titty burned by eyes and offended me as a Christian. But I get it--who doesn't love the spectacle of juiced-up millionaires giving one another brain damage on a giant flatscreen TV with a picture so real it feels like Ben Roethlisberger is in your living room, grabbing your sister? It's no surprise that some one hundred million Americans will watch the Super Bowl--that's forty million more than go to church on Christmas--suck on that, Jesus! It's also eighty-five million more than watched the last game of the World Series, and in that is an economic lesson for America. Because football is built on an economic model of fairness and opportunity, and baseball is built on a model where the rich almost always win and the poor usually have no chance. The World Series is like . You have to be a rich bitch just to play. The Super Bowl is like Tila Tequila. Anyone can get in. Or to put it another way, football is more like the Democratic philosophy. Democrats don't want to eliminate capitalism or competition, but they'd like it if some kids didn't have to go to a crummy school in a rotten neighborhood while others get to go to a great school and their dad gets them into Harvard. Because when that happens, "achieving the American dream" is easy for some and just a fantasy for others. That's why the NFL literally shares the wealth--TV is their biggest source of revenue, and they put all of it in a big commie pot and split it thirty-two ways. Because they don't want anyone to fall too far behind. That's why the team that wins the Super Bowl picks last in the next draft. Or what the Republicans would call "punishing success." Baseball, on the other hand, is exactly like the Republicans, and I don't just mean it's incredibly boring. I mean their economic theory is every man for himself. The small-market Pittsburgh Steelers go to the Super Bowl more than anybody--but the Pittsburgh Pirates? Levi Johnston has sperm that will not grow and live long enough to see the Pirates in a World Series. Their payroll is $40 million; the Yankees' is $206 million. The Pirates have about as much chance as getting in the playoffs as a poor black teenager from Newark has of becoming the CEO of Halliburton. So you kind of have to laugh--the same angry white males who hate Obama because he's "redistributing wealth" just love football, a sport that succeeds economically because it does just that. To them, the NFL is as American as hot dogs, Chevrolet, apple pie, and a second, giant helping of apple pie."
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|
politics
humor
sports
|
Bill Maher |
|
e170bb9
|
Baseball is a soap opera that lends itself to probabilistic thinking. [Dick Cramer]
|
|
statistics
sports
|
Michael Lewis |
|
2e98040
|
"The two keys to success as a sportswriter are: 1) A blind willingness to believe anything you're told by the coaches, flacks, hustlers and other "official spokesmen" for the team-owners who provide the free booze ... and: 2) A Roget's Thesaurus, in order to avoid using the same verbs and adjectives twice in the same paragraph. Even a sports editor, for instance, might notice something wrong with a lead that said: "The precision-jack-hammer attack of the Miami Dolphins stomped the balls off the Washington Redskins today by stomping and hammering with one precise jack-thrust after another up the middle, mixed with pinpoint-precision passes into the flat and numerous hammer-jack stomps around both ends...."
|
|
writing
sports
wit
|
Hunter S. Thompson |
|
ea2bdba
|
"The game (baseball)was a custom of his clan, and it gave outlet for the homicidal and sides-taking instincts which Babbitt called "patriotism" and "love of sport." --
|
|
masculinity
sports
|
Sinclair Lewis |
|
31abcb4
|
Baseball has so much history and tradition. You can respect it, or you can exploit it for profit, but it's still being made all over the place, all the time.
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|
sports
|
Michael Lewis |
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650f283
|
It would be difficult to convince me that leaning has no effect whatsoever on the outcome of my bowling.
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|
bowling
leaning
sports
|
Amy Krouse Rosenthal |
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a697936
|
That's why he was here, to surrender himself to longing, to listen to his host recite the anecdotal texts, all the passed-down stories of bonehead plays and swirling brawls, the pitching duels that carried into twilight, stories that Marvin had been collecting for half a century--the deep eros of memory that separates baseball from other sports.
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|
sports
|
Don DeLillo |
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50e572d
|
I'd never been much of an athlete, due to a physical condition I'd had since birth (unathleticism). Perhaps if there were a sport centered around lying on your couch in a neurotic stupor all day, I'd take an interest.
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|
athleticism
unathleticism
laziness
sports
|
Colson Whitehead |
|
93e9883
|
Defeated misery is what all sport is about, eventually, if you follow the story for long enough; all sportsmen know this.
|
|
sports
|
Nick Hornby |
|
1eb51c8
|
New Rule: Don't name your kid after a ballpark. Cubs fans Paul and Teri Fields have named their newborn son Wrigley. Wrigley Fields. A child is supposed to be an independent individual, not a means of touting your own personal hobbies. At least that's what I've always taught my kids, Panama Red and Jacuzzi.
|
|
names
humor
bad-decisions
baseball
chicago
chicago-cubs
naming
sports-fans
parenting
parents
children
sports
|
Bill Maher |
|
6dda29d
|
Like many men addicted to sports, Clive Sr. was also a religious man.
|
|
sports
|
Richard Russo |
|
ed8a09c
|
That's such bullshit, Mythology repeated by parents because it lets them force their kids into sports and push them too hard by pretending that in the end it will pay off with the holy scholarship. You know how many kids get a free ride? Hardly any. Like, maybe fourteen.' -Finn (165)
|
|
fear
finn
hayley
pretending
knife
parents
sports
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
a530b58
|
Look, girls. It is important to all of us that we win this game, right? Well, when it comes to athletics, boys are simply better suited than girls. It's a fact of nature that no one can change. I'm sorry, but maybe you can play next time when it's less crucial.
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|
sweet-valley
sports
|
Francine Pascal |
|
1ca92fa
|
Forget about showering with my fellow students in Tribeca Alternative's prison-style showers--one nozzle for four to six girls at a time--in the locker room. It was impossible to work up a sweat during what passed for physical education class at TAHS, so there was no need to shower, anyway. Well, impossible for me, considering that, in the past, whenever a volleyball or whatever came near me, I'd always make sure to step calmly away to avoid it. See? No sweat. No need for a shower. Problem solved.
|
|
avoid
calm-under-pressure
no-shower
pe-class
school-sports
shower
shy
shy-people
volley-ball
sports
|
Meg Cabot |