On a friendship with former president George W. Bush: He's a personal friend, but we've all got the right not to agree with our friends.

I'm not trying to justify myself, or say I'm not sorry, or not contrite.

Everybody wants to know what I'm on. What am I on? I'm on my bike busting my ass six hours a day. What are you on?

The idea that anybody was forced, or pressured, or encouraged, is not true.

It was great to fight in training, great to fight in the race, but you don't need to fight in a press conference, or an interview, or a personal interaction.

So if there is a purpose to the suffering that is cancer, I think it must be this: it's meant to improve us.

Athletes don't have much use for poking around in their childhoods, because, introspection doesn't get you anywhere in a race.