“Rigging is like Zen meditation. You must bend over the boat until your back is breaking, until your brain is filled with numbers and fractions of numbers, until you can accurately measure an oarlock’s pitch without bothering to use the pitch meter. Only then will you see the way of eternal rigging happiness.”

One of the unique aspects of rowing is that novices strive to perfect the same motions as Olympic contenders. Few other sports can make this claim. In figure skating, for instance, the novice practices only simple moves.

Racing shirts should be sold on big, thick rolls like paper towels.

After hooking up the fuel line and pumping a little gasoline through the hose, I prepared for a workout on the ‘coach’s ergometer’.

I never realized how many holidays encroached on the collegiate training schedule. When I was training for the Olympics, only one holiday interested me, the Day After the Games.

Another myth we fed to the public through the media was that legalizing abortion would only mean that the abortions taking place i1legally would then be done legally.

The culture in which we live stresses looking out for number one. Without adopting such a self-centered value system, we can demand the best of ourselves while we are extending our hands to help others.

The only reason that we like complex numbers is that we don’t like real numbers.

Feeding the starving poor only increases their number.

Fruit of all the kinds that the country produced were laid before him; he ate very little, but from time to time a liquor prepared from cocoa, and of an aphrodisiac nature.

Nature is not the number-one mystery, I’ve learned. It’s the heart that takes top honors.

One murder made a villain, Millions a hero. Princes were privileged To kill, and numbers sanctified the crime.

A work of art rests its merits in traditional qualities. It may constitute a remarkable feat in craftsmanship; it may be a searching study of psychological states; it may be a nostalgic glance backward.