People come out to see you perform and you've got to give them the best you have within you.

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

Although I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President either.

Only by God?s grace have I made it to see today and only by God?s grace will I ever see tomorrow.

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

The road to the Olympics, leads to no city, no country. It goes far beyond New York or Moscow, ancient Greece or Nazi Germany. The road to the Olympics leads — in the end — to the best within us.

In the space of less than seven days, I attended a track meet in Boston, flew from there to Bowling Green for the National Jaycees, then to Rochester for the blind, Buffalo for another track meet, New York to shoot a film called The Black Athlete, Miami for Ford Motor Company, back up to New York for 45 minutes to deliver a speech, then into L. A. for another the same night.