It dawned on me with blinding brightness. I realized: I had jumped into another rare kind of stratosphere - one that only a handful of people in every generation are lucky enough to know.

No one should question the faith of others, for no human being can judge the ways of God.

I'd noticed him watching me for a year or so, especially when we'd play games where there was running or jumping.

It's like having a pet dog for a long time. You get attached to it, and when it dies you miss it.

To a sprinter, the hundred-yard dash is over in three seconds, not nine or ten.

The lives of most men are patchwork quilts. Or at best one matching outfit with a closet and laundry bag full of incongruous accumulations. A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.

I always loved running.... It was something you could do by yourself and under your own power.

We used to have a lot of fun. We never had any problems. We always ate. The fact that we didn't have steak? Who had steak?

He was constantly on me about the job that I was to do and the responsibility that I had upon the campus. And how I must be able to carry myself because people were looking.

Life doesn't give you all the practice races you need.

For a time, at least, I was the most famous person in the entire world.

I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals.

It all goes so fast, and character makes the difference when it's close

I decided I wasn't going to come down. I was going to fly. I was going to stay up in the air forever.

I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible. From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up.

People come out to see you perform and you've got to give them the best you have within you.

If you don't try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody's back yard.

Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.

I fought, I fought harder . . . but one cell at a time, panic crept into my body, taking me over.