The Threshold of Pain

Over the last few months, I've been reading a lot of George Pelecanos' crime novels.  I became hooked on his style of writing while watching The Wire on HBO, for which he was a writer and producer.  This week, while reading The Night Gardener, one of his sentences really matched what I've been feeling lately, both on the bike, at work, and in life:

"Good fighters come to the threshold of pain and cross it fully to achieve greatness."

Moreover, I think greatness requires you to see the threshold before you reach it, and to push towards it, knowing that success is beyond the threshold.

NOTE:  In the context of the novel, he states that it is a quote from a boxing poster from Mack Lewis' gym in Baltimore.  I'm not sure if that's a real or fictional gym, and since I can't find the quote anywhere on the internet, I give full credit to Mr. Pelecanos.