If you think you can do it, you can.
What you do today can improve all your tomorrows.
The wise does at once what the fool does at last.
Only the educated are free.
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.
Be gentle to all and stern with yourself.
Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.
Go for it now. The future is promised to no one.
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail.
But mostly, it's a book about my relationship with my father.
And partly, the worst thing you could do in my family was need something from someone. So physical strength represented an avenue of self-sufficiency to me.