- “Let each of you discover where your chance for greatness lies. Seize that chance and let no power on earth deter you.”
- “If the season could ever have any salvation, if it could ever make sense again, it would have to come tonight under a flood of stars on the flatiron plains, before thousands of fans who had once anointed him the chosen son but now mostly thought of him as just another nigger.”
- “He firmly believed that football, like other sports, used blacks, exploited them and then spit them out once their talents as running backs or linebackers or wide receivers had been fully exhausted. For a few lucky ones, that moment might not come until they were established in the pros. For others, it might come at the end of college. For most, it would all end in high school.”
- "Under the right circumstances, the demon wins the heart of the most steadfast soul, and the nemesis always becomes a lover."
- “Odessa is the setting for this book, but it could be anyplace in this vast land where, on a Friday night, a set of spindly stadium lights rises to the heavens to so powerfully, and so briefly, ignite the darkness.”
- "Likewise, Boobie Miles reveals how a student loses even his racial identity in the midst of Permian. Despite the town's ingrained racism, they have accepted that minority players are essential to victory, and so look past his skin color, at least as long as he performs well. They ignore the fact that he is a learning-impaired black boy from ‘Niggertown’. What's perhaps most damning, though, is that Boobie too looks past those attitudes. Though he knows how they feel, he is willing to be embraced by people who would otherwise hate him. In Odessa, it seems, there are few other opportunities for self-worth."
- "Now, a mere mortal, old and arthritic, he is haunted by his success, as he lives vicariously through Don's successes. Yet again, Bissinger paints a character that is initially blessed by dreams, but then tortured by them."
- "Although the racial profile at Permian has barely changed since desegregation, the Wall of Fame in the field house has become a testament to Permian’s new racial dynamic. While blacks and whites would never mix in public, they can at least celebrate together at football games."
- “A week after the game, Republican presidential candidate George Bush came to the Midland-Odessa area for a campaign appearance. The scene on the tarmac at the airport wasn’t as feverish as the one at the parking lot of Ratliff Stadium, where Permian fans had been lined up for two nights to buy tickets. Some things, after all, would always be more important than others. But it did have the aura of a Friday morning pep rally.”
- "The night before the game at the private team meeting behind locked doors, Gaines told the story of a swimmer named Steve Genter, who had been set to go to the Munich Olympics in 1972 in the two-hundred-meter freestyle when his lung collapsed. He was cut open to repair the lung and then sewn back up. Doctors said there was no way Genter could swim unless he took painkillers, the use of which was illegal under Olympic rules. But Genter, who had dreamed of going to the Olympics since the age of nine, decided to swim anyway — without medication. In the silent locker room, Gaines told what happened next, for he clearly saw a message in Genter’s actions. His face was ashen-white because the pain was so excruciating. He hits the water, he makes the first lap, does a spin turn at the other end and pushes off, and comes up for air and lets out a blood-curdling scream. Because the pain is so intense, the sound just echoes off the walls of the swimming arena. He makes a split turn at the end of the second lap, pushes off, and he breaks his stitches, his stitches split apart and he starts bleeding. They said he lost a pint and a half of blood over the course of the next two laps.“I guarantee you, I’d want him in my corner,” said Gaines of Genter, who ended up losing the gold medal to Mark Spitz by the length of a finger. “When the chips were down, I’d want a guy with that kind of character in my corner, I promise you, ’cause he’s a fighter.”"
- "Well, you're gonna win, or you're gonna lose. Either way, the sun's gonna come up the next morning."
- "Every man at some point in his life is gonna lose a battle. He's gonna fight and he's gonna lose. But what makes him a man is that in the midst of the battle, he does not lose himself."
- "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose."
- "Being perfect is not about that scoreboard out there. It's not about winning. It's about you and your relationship with yourself, your family and your friends. Being perfect is about being able to look your friends in the eye and know that you didnt let them down because you told them the truth. And that truth is you did everything you could. There wasnt one more thing you could've done. Can you live in that moment as best you can, with clear eyes, and love in your heart, with joy in your heart? If you can do that gentleman - you're perfect!"
- "I'm gonna miss the heat." "I'm gonna miss the lights." "Yeah, me too. Stay low boys, keep those feet moving."
- "I want you to take a moment, and I want you to look each other in the eyes. I want you to put each other in your hearts forever because forever is about to happen here in just a few minutes. I want you to close your eyes, and I want you to think about Boobie Miles, who is your brother. And he would die to be out there in that field with you tonight. And I want you to put that in your hearts. Boys my heart is full. My heart is full."
- "It took me a long time to realize that, uh, there ain't much difference between winnin' and losin', except for how the outside world treats you. But inside you, it's about all the same. It really is. Fact of the matter is, I believe that, uh, our only curses are the ones that are self-imposed. You know what I'm sayin'? We, all of us, dig our own holes."
- "You just-you ain't gettin' it. You don't understand. This is the only thing you're ever gonna have. Forever, it carries you forever. It's an ugly fact of life. Donnie, hell. It's the only fact of life. You got one year, one stinkin' year to make yourself some memories, son. That's all. It's gone after that. And I'll be damned if you're not gonna miss it."
- "God made black beautiful. God made Boobie beautiful. And when I knock someone out, I'm gonna knock 'em out in nikes and I'm gonna smile while I do it."
- "The tingling sensation stayed with him, and he knew that when he stepped on that field tonight he wouldn’t feel like a football player at all but like someone . . . entering a glittering, barbaric arena."
- "The season had ended, but another one had begun. People everywhere, young and old, were already dreaming of heroes."
dec 18 2017 ∞
dec 18 2017 +