I could feel my anger dissipating as the miles went by--you can't run and stay mad!

Women were afraid and they would never even imagine running a marathon in 1967.

I do forgive people when they get it right, even people who in the past I thought were unforgivable.

A picture, of Jock Semple kissed me,appeared in The New York Times the next day after Boston Marathon in 1973, and the caption was "The end of an era."

Life is for participating, not for spectating.

When I was first running marathons, we were sailing on a flat earth. We were afraid we'd get big legs, grow mustaches, not get boyfriends, not be able to have babies. Women thought that something would happen to them, that they'd break down or turn into men, something shadowy, when they were only limited by their own society's sense of limitations.

When I go to the Boston Marathon now, I have wet shoulders—women fall into my arms crying. They're weeping for joy because running has changed their lives. They feel they can do anything.