If you don't try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody's back yard.

Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.

Friendships born on the field of athletic strife are the real gold of competition. Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.

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

When I passed the Chancellor he arose, waved his hand at me, and I waved back at him. I think the writers showed bad taste in criticizing the man of the hour in Germany.

The only bond worth anything between human beings is their humanness.

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.