1. "If the human body recognized agony and frustration, people would never run marathons, have babies, or play baseball."    Carlton Fisk
2. “A popular form of overpriced torture wherein participants wake up at ass-o-clock in the morning and stand in the freezing cold until it's time to run, at which point they miserably trot for a god-awful interval of time that could be better spent sleeping in and/or consuming large quantities of beer and cupcakes.” -- Matthew Inman
3. "If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon." -- Kathrine Switzer
4. "If you want to run, run a mile. If you want to experience a different life, run a marathon."  -- Emil Zatopek
5.  "You have to forget your last marathon before you try another. Your mind can't know what's coming."  -- Frank Shorter
6.  "I had as many doubts as anyone else. Standing on the starting line, we're all cowards." -- Alberto Salazar
7.  "No doubt a brain and some shoes are essential for marathon success, although if it comes down to a choice, pick the shoes. More people finish marathons with no brains than with no shoes." -- Don Kardong
8. "The real competition is against the little voice inside you that wants to quit"  -- George A. Sheehan
9. "You entered a marathon with hills? You idiot." -- Don Kardong
10.  "If you feel bad at 10 miles, you're in trouble. If you feel bad at 20 miles, you're normal. If you don't feel bad at 26 miles, you're abnormal." -- Rob de Castella
11. “The race always hurts. Expect it to hurt. You don’t train so it doesn’t hurt. You train so you can tolerate it.”  -- Unknown
12.  “When you run the marathon, you run against the distance, not against the other runners and not against the time.” -- Haile Gebrselassie
13. “Of all the races, there is no better stage for heroism than a marathon." -- George Sheehan
14.  “In the first half of the race, don’t be an idiot. In the second half, don’t be a wimp!” -- Scott Douglas
15.  "The key to running a good marathon is to not listen to anyone's advice the last week before the race. That's when people tend to do stupid things that disrupt all the input and training of the previous months." -- Don Kardong
16.  Why couldn't Pheidippides have died here?” -- Frank Shorter's comment to Kenny Moore at the 16-mile mark in one of Shorter's first marathons
17. “Every marathon I ran, I knew I had a faster one in me” -- Dick Beardsley
18.  “Marathoning is like cutting yourself unexpectedly. You dip into the pain so gradually that the damage is done before you are aware of it. Unfortunately, when awareness comes, it is excruciating.” -- John Farrington
19.  "If people were possessed by reason, running marathons would never work. But we are not creatures of reason. We are creatures of passion." -- Noel Carroll
20.  "It can be said that the first half of the marathon is 20 miles long; the second half, 6.2 more."  -- Hal Higdon
21.  "There is the truth about the marathon and very few of you have written the truth. Even if I explain to you, you'll never understand it, you're outside of it." -- Douglas Wakiihuri, speaking to reporters
22.  "The pride in finishing a marathon is much greater than all the pain endured during the marathon."  -- Hal Higdon
23.  "To describe the agony of a marathon to someone who's never run it is like trying to explain color to someone who was born blind." -- Jerome Drayton
24.  "If you have the courage to fail, then you have the courage to succeed.” -- Shalane Flanagan
25.  "Falling apart in a 5K is painful, but it's just pain. Falling apart in a marathon, I believe you lose a year of your life. You complete the marathon feeling utterly defeated, knowing that it got the best of you, and you go home and ask your mom if she still loves you."  -- Jacob Frey
26.  “The marathon will humble you. But the truth is, sometimes it will do more than humble you. Sometimes it will break your heart.”  -- Bill Rodgers

And finally....

     26.2  “F*$% yeah.” -- Shalane Flanagan nearing the finish line of the 2017 NYC Marathon