“It was bad enough to have toppled from the Olympic heights to make my living competing with animals. But the competition wasn't even fair. No man could beat a race horse, not even for 100 yards.”

“"It was not always so," he said slowly. "When I was a boy—stealing horses was not a crime. It was the way of a brave man, a warrior. Horses then served the purposes of the tribe." He could tell them more, but what he could tell them would perhaps disgust them, confuse them. He had told them enough. Tomacito could have told how Indian tribes rode horses, and when the horses grew old and useless, or when the tribe grew desperate for hunger or for shelter, they drank their horses' blood, stripped their hides for teepees, ate the flesh. Cruel, yes, but necessary. They bought horses, traded for horses, and if they had to—and often they had to—they stole horses. The Spaniards came, and then the white man, and they had horses, and the Indians had none, in the beginning. The white man and the Spaniard, on horses, chased the Indian from his own land. The Indians, on foot, were easy to chase, to hunt down, and kill. With horses, the Indians could stand and fight and die, or run and hide and live a little longer. It was an unfair fight from the start, even with horses, but without horses, it wasn't a fight at all. It was a massacre.”

“Even an animal, if you show genuine affection, gradually trust develops... If you always showing bad face and beating, how can you develop friendship?”

“Even if a man were to make a new heaven and earth, he could not live free of care.”

“The irony is that so many countries are competing in arms races, they don't even care how many people have been and will be victims.”

“We were clear that we had to be internationally competitive and were passionate about building competencies that were the best in the world even when the tariffs were very high. It was an obsession with me to beat the Taiwanese and the Koreans who dominated the polyester business in the '70s.”

“On the other hand it was bad manners to look a gift horse in the mouth. Even if you're getting it from an overweight cracker in a fringe shirt.”

“A bad-tempered man will never make a good-tempered horse.”

“The race was over. I was last, by ten yards. Without the slightest hesitation I protested and challenged the runners to another race, same distance, back. They refused to consider my proposal, which proved, I knew, that they were afraid to race me. I told them they knew very well I could beat them.”

“Well, it seems to me it might be better if the colleges had race horses. The jockeys could wear the school colors and they could ride the races, and the horses wouldn't have to pass the entrance examinations.”