“Dance,” said the Sheep Man.
Sara reminded me of one of my favorite books of all time, A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami. I read this book quite a few years ago and followed it up with “Dance, Dance, Dance”, the sequel. In it, the main character is going through some rough times, and a mystical character called the Sheep Man (who talks without spaces between his words) appears and kind of helps him through it. I was going through a really rough point in my own life at that time, and this speech by the Sheep Man became my mantra. I knew that no matter how hopeless things seemed at the time, I had to keep “dancing” and eventually things would get better. If I gave up, I’d be stuck.
“Dance,” said the Sheep Man. “Yougottadance. Aslongasthemusicplays. Yougottadance. Don’teventhinkwhy. Starttothink, yourfeetstop. Yourfeetstop, wegetstuck. Wegetstuck, you’restuck. Sodon’tpayanymind, nomatterhowdumb. Yougottakeepthestep. Yougottalimberup. Yougottaloosenwhatyoubolteddown. Yougottauseallyougot. Weknowyou’retired, tiredandscared. Happenstoeveryone, okay? Justdon’tletyourfeetstop.”
Well things did get better. A LOT better. I no longer need to keep this quote in my wallet to look at daily. But I just looked it up again and realized it’s a great running quote as well. 
Especially during a race: Justdon’tletyourfeetstop!
That’s a fantastic quote! “Yougottakeepthestep. Yougottalimberup. Yougottauseallyougot.” All of those would be perfect in a race! Now I want to find this as an audiobook so I can put that passage in my iPod.
i love those two books, and especially the Sheep Man. I think they may be my favorite. But it’s hard to say, they’re all so good. You beat me to blogging this quote!!
[...] getting really tough. I was thinking of the Sheep Man’s speech through most of the race. http://www.keithpeters.org/?p=493. “Yougottakeepthestep. Yougottalimberup. Yougottaloosenwhatyoubolteddown. [...]
[...] This just reminded me a lot of my favorite quote from the Sheep Man. [...]