The secret is, first, get a thoroughbred horse because they are the most nervous animals on earth. Then get the biggest gun you can find and make sure the starter fires that big gun right by the nervous thoroughbred's ear.

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

I'd noticed him watching me for a year or so, especially when we'd play games where there was running or jumping.

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.

For a time, at least, I was the most famous person in the entire world.

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.

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