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

One day or another every athlete feels like taking it easy. He stops trying to exceed his limits, and thinks he can keep winning because of his lucky star, or the bad luck of his opponents. You must overcome this negative instinct, which affects all of us, and which is the only difference between the person who wins a race, and those who lose. This is the battle you have to fight every day of your life.

The only victory that counts is the one over yourself.

Running is real. It’s all joy and woe, hard as diamond. It makes you weary beyond comprehension, but it also makes you free.

I fought, I fought harder . . . but one cell at a time, panic crept into my body, taking me over.

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

People say that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals. There was no television, no big advertising, no endorsements then. Not for a black man, anyway.