Marathons are hard because of the physical pain, the pounding on the muscles, joints, tendons.

I would love to be in a place, and I may never get there, where I can help people. It's something that I never really cared to advertise. It got advertised. I still do it on one-on-one level almost daily.

I got the three things I wanted. I did my job, I worked hard in the process, and I cherish the memories, and they're mine.

I wanted to live, but whether I would or not was mystery, and in the midst of confronting that fact, even at that moment, I was beginning to sense that to stare into the heart of such a fearful mystery wasn't a bad thing. To be afraid is a priceless education. P 99

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

I am flawed, deeply flawed. I didn't invent the [doping] culture but I didn't try to stop the culture and that's my mistake, and that's what I have to be sorry for.

Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.