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.

That is the trouble with happiness-all of it is built on top of something that men want.

We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, 'I survived'.

Our own personal brand of courage - in relationships, in conflict, in our principles ­ - is as unique as our fingerprints.

Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means, this storyteller is alive. The next thing you know something fine will happen to her, something marvelous, and then she will turn around and smile.

We were exiles from reality that summer. We were refugees from ourselves.

That is how we lived, happily and without hope. I was very young then, and I did not miss having a future because I did not know I was entitled to one.