I don't need a field of a thousand people. Anybody can tell you that whoever needs help, I'm happy to help.

There's no rule, no law, no regulation that says you can't come back. So I have every right to come back.

I have been dealing with claims that I cheated and had an unfair advantage in winning my seven Tours since 1999.

I wanted to win the Tour de France. And when I won it once, I wanted to do it again, and again, and again, it just kept going. So there wasn't another competitive environment.

My greatest point is my persistence... However down I am, I fight until the last ball.

I believed in belief, for its own shining sake. To believe in the face of utter hopelessness, every article of evidence to the contrary, to ignore apparent catastrophe - what other choice was there? We do it every day, I realized. We are so much stronger than we imagine, and belief is one of the most valiant and long-lived human characteristics. To believe, when all along we humans know that nothing can cure the briefness of this life, that there is no remedy for our basic mortality, that is a form of bravery. To continue believing in yourself, believing in the doctors, believing in thetreatent, believing in whatever I chose to believe in, that was the most important thing.

Anyone who imagines they can work alone winds up surrounded by nothing but rivals, without companions. The fact is, no one ascends alone.