I take nothing for granted. I now have only good days, or great days.

Suffering, I was beginning to think, was essential to a good life, and as inextricable from such a life as bliss. It’s a great enhancer. It might last a minute, but eventually it subsides, and when it does, something else takes its place, and maybe that thing is a great space. For happiness. Each time I encountered suffering, I believed that I grew, and further defined my capacities – not just my physical ones, but my interior ones as well, for contentment, friendship, or any other human experience.

I have never doped. I can say it again, but I've said it for seven years.

One of the redeeming things about being an athlete is redefining what is humanly possible.

There were something like 50 good, arduous climbs around Nice, solid inclines of ten miles or more. The trick was not to climb every once in awhile, but to climb repeatedly. I would do three different climbs in one day, over the course of a six- or seven-hour ride. A 12 mile climb took about an hour, so that tells you what my days were like.

We all want to be forgiven. There's a lot of really, really bad people who want to be forgiven but will never be forgiven, and I might be in that camp.

Hope that is the only antidote to fear.