Literary Quotes That Double As Excellent Mantras During A Final Set (Or: Things I Have Whispered Quietly To Myself At The Gym)

“Shadows avaunt, Richard’s himself again!”

– Ivanhoe, deadlifts

“The question isn’t who’s going to let me. It’s who’s going to stop me.”

– Ayn Rand, bent-over rows

“I slew him, tumty-tum.”

– P.G. Wodehouse (Bertie Wooster misquoting Thomas Hood), seated rows

“I am a leaf on the wind; watch me soar.”

– Wash, “Firefly,” assisted pullups

“MORE WEIGHT”

– Giles Corey, Salem Witch Trials, bench press

“MANLINESS WITHOUT OSTENTATION I LEARNED FROM MY FATHER”

– Marcus Aurelius, Medituations, squats and box jumps

“Death [exhale] is my gift [inhale].”

– Buffy the Vampire Slayer, bicep curls

“Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England.”

– Thomas Malory, Morte D’Arthur, kettlebell swings

“Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter.”

– Homer, walking lunges

“EVERYTHING NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY”

– T.H. White, The Once and Future King, dips

“I am half agony, half hope.”

– Jane Austen, Persuasion, seated fly

“Beauty! Terrible Beauty!

A deathless Goddess!”

– Homer, pushups (assisted, if I’m being honest)

“Everything is more beautiful because we are doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.”

– Homer, whenever I pass in front of the full-length mirror