My paternal grandmother drove ambulances during the regional Blitz, in Birmingham.

Life is extremely short and you cannot dance to current affairs.

It's extremely hard for athletes to accept what's happened to them sometimes. It's hard to be beaten by a small margin, and I've spoken with athletes who, for years afterward, have been tormented by the knowledge that, had they done something ever so slightly different, they could have been one-ten-thousandth of a second quicker.

The ways in which we are able to express courage also depend on the hand life deals us.

I am a woman built upon the wreckage of myself.

I like to push characters to extremes so they have to make really tough decisions and there is no life more extreme than that of an athlete.

It is certainly impossible to imagine forgiving the enemy while their animus remains undefeated.