If rowing is a trial then the ergometer is the courtroom, the meter is the jury. And an honest jury at that, because the numbers do not lie.

There is a place where cerebral an corporeal meet: they call it rowing

The oars game me power but also taught me humility.

Ergometer is Greek for 'work meter'

In college, I was an editor on the student daily... To the extent that I noticed the existence of crew at all, I saw only what appeared to be big-boned acolytes who rose at dawn.

When you are on the erg your mind is too busy to pay attention to the sounds of the machine; you notice only that they are indeed loud.

A boat is the hardest think I know of to put into perspective. It is so much like a human figure, there is something alive about it.

The single sculler, alone on the river at dawn, or spotlighted in his lane during a race, is th emost romantic, the most quixotic figure in all rowing.

The greatest poet who ever wrote about rowing is Virgil, the greatest historian is Thucydides, but the greatest imagination ever to turn its attention to the sport is that of painter, Thomas Eakins.

Rowing was not simple for me. I nodded whenever the instructor made a point, as if I understood, but I could as easily have assembled the space shuttle as have repeated the moves she was explaining.

Rowing it was pointed out, was a sport that risked few injuries. So it was, I ould discover, but only if you did it right.

The crying sounded even louder out of doors. It was as if all the painin the world had found a voice

It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out it's the grain of sand in your shoe.

My aim in life isn't so much the pursuit of happiness as the happiness of pursuit.

The only thing that limits us is our imagination.

One act of pure love in saving life is greater than spending the whole of one's time in religious offerings to the gods . . .

The greatest challenge Internet users face is information overload.

We get these lives for free. I didn't do anything to get this life, and no matter what the hardships are, it is free and, in a way, it's an extraordinary bargain.

I am much more intelligent than you think.

What it takes to survive out here is order, I realize and say to myself, ‘Divide the day into equal periods. See this travel alarm? You get up, don your uniform, move according to the bell.’

Faith is reason denying absurdity in the face of the unknown.