“Trying to change someone only makes them cling to their existing behavior with brutish, primal force.”
Source: Fresh Oil and Loose Gravel: Road Poetry by Brian D'Ambrosio 1998-2008
“Boxing is beautiful brutality, and the devil is in the duality. Boxing is a tug of war and you recognize the antithetical feelings that are pulling you from the other end.”
“Time
concocted by caffeine
unnervingly familiar
a ferociousness that sucks you in
even as it wears you down”
“After you have seasoned your gloves with the blood, sweat and tears of your opponents, all else is anticlimactic.”
Source: Life in the Trenches
“Simplicity matters. Especially when it comes to the muscle memory of boxing. That is perhaps rule number one. Simplicity works. Simplicity is repetition. Repetition is function. Boil function down to one action, maybe two. Left or right. Simplicity. Simplicity is really the hardest thing.”
Source: Rasta in the Ring: The Life of Rastafarian Boxer Livingstone Bramble
“Short lives,
bouncing harmlessly as a cloth doll on grandma’s lap.
Small helpless states,
pretentiousness garbed in the unintelligible,
makers of disposable art,
the zeal to make a scoop unstoppable,
pacified by fresh news,
of scrabbling sexy movements.”
“Needless to say, I personally don’t believe fighting should be banned. I don't understand why a relatively small segment of the hockey world feels obligated to ban extracurricular combat when it's so popular elsewhere in American sports. Additionally, the league shouldn’t be trying to ban fighting to save the enforcers from hurting themselves. Fighters realize the risks associated with what they do, and they are bound to accept these risks.”
Source: Warriors on the Ice: Hockey's Toughest Talk
“For a man to get married and stay married, he must detach from and disavow the three things that bind him to reality: sex, travel, and near-death experiences.”
“In these shallow arroyos
and grease-covered hills,
blowing dust zones,
the Christmas spirit of cotton bales,
fried in butter
and sweeping heat,
life,
spaciously allotted.
Catching our breath,
smiling in silence,
with the lowering sun in our faces.”
Source: Fresh Oil and Loose Gravel: Road Poetry by Brian D'Ambrosio 1998-2008
“Molitveni jezik jedini je jezik u kojem nema jezičnih zabrana. Kako je već rečeno, on je obuhvatniji od jezika vjere koja je sigurna u samu sebe. U jeziku molitve može se naime reći i to da se ne može vjerovati.”
Source: Memoria passionis: Ein provozierendes Gedächtnis in pluralistischer Gesellschaft