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.

One chance is all you need.

It was bad enough to have toppled from the Olympic heights to make my living competing with animals. But the competition wasn't even fair. No man could beat a race horse, not even for 100 yards.

It dawned on me with blinding brightness. I realized: I had jumped into another rare kind of stratosphere - one that only a handful of people in every generation are lucky enough to know.

The black fist is a meaningless symbol. When you open it, you have nothing but fingers - weak, empty fingers. The only time the black fist has significance is when there's money inside. There's where the power lies.

We used to have a lot of fun. We never had any problems. We always ate. The fact that we didn't have steak? Who had steak?

It all goes so fast, and character makes the difference when it's close