“It takes a lot more than ability to run fast; it takes the ability to keep coming back and coming back.”

In training, don’t be afraid to be an oddball, eccentric, or extremist. Only by daring to go against tradition can new ways of training be learned. The trick is recognizing quickly when a new approach is counterproductive.

Ultimately, the best runners are the ones who are willing to work very hard but who have a little bit of a lazy streak in them.

I came home every Friday afternoon, riding the six miles on the back of a big mule. I spent Saturday and Sunday washing and ironing and cooking for the children and went back to my country school on Sunday afternoon.

What you need is someone to take hold of you–gently, with love, and hand your life back to you, like something gold you let go of–and I can! I’m determined to do it–and nothing’s more determined than a cat on a tin roof–is there?

People won’t want powers being handed back from bureaucrats in Brussels to be given to bureaucrats in Britain.

He knew them only ‘in Braille’ – the curtains were never drawn back in the rooms in Oxford where he met those boys. It was the most sordid life you can imagine. And he was bleating about love and dragging the fair name of Mr. Plato into the trial – after a life like that?

Back of ninety-nine out of one-hundred assertions that a thing cannot be done is nothing, but the unwillingness to do it.

I was amazed to receive later a substantial sum for sitting in my room and talking about myself. If only I could get some of the back pay!

I always want to wear clothes that my children will one day look back on and say, ‘Oh, you looked amazing – why didn’t you keep that?’ Not, ‘Oh my God – I can’t believe you wore that.’

The sunlit face of the earth would appear to shine by the light diffused back into space from the land and water-covered areas.