Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.

Find the good. It's all around you. Find it, showcase it and you'll start believing in it.

I decided I wasn't going to come down. I was going to fly. I was going to stay up in the air forever.

Every morning, just like in Alabama, I got up with the sun, ate my breakfast even before my mother and sisters and brothers, and went to school, winter, spring, and fall alike to run and jump and bend my body this way and that for Mr. Charles Riley.

I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals.

To a sprinter, the hundred-yard dash is over in three seconds, not nine or ten. The first 'second' is when you come out of the blocks. The next is when you look up and take your first few strides to attain gain position. By that time the race is actually about half over. The final 'second' - the longest slice of time in the world for an athlete - is that last half of the race, when you really bear down and see what you're made of. It seems to take an eternity, yet is all over before you can think what's happening.

It's like having a pet dog for a long time. You get attached to it, and when it dies you miss it.