“A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.”

The secret is, first, get a thoroughbred horse because they are the most nervous animals on earth. Then get the biggest gun you can find and make sure the starter fires that big gun right by the nervous thoroughbred’s ear.

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

Although I wasn’t invited to shake hands with Hitler, I wasn’t invited to the White House to shake hands with the President either.

Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.

It was bad enough to have toppled from the Olympic heights to make my living competing with animals. But the competition wasn’t even fair. No man could beat a race horse, not even for 100 yards.

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

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

Find the good. It’s all around you. Find it, showcase it and you’ll start believing in it.

The only bond worth anything between human beings is their humanness.

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

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

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

If you don’t try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody’s back yard. The thrill of competing carries with it the thrill of a gold medal. One wants to win to prove himself the best.

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

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.

When I passed the Chancellor he arose, waved his hand at me, and I waved back at him. I think the writers showed bad taste in criticizing the man of the hour in Germany.

Pain is the price you pay for resisting life.

Let each man exercise the art he knows.

To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy.

Every day is a lesson in focus for me, and not buying into the world’s concept of what you have to be. I really try every day to be individual and not just in my style or my look or my music, but in my approach to life.

If I die tomorrow I will not regret. I really did everything I could.

There’s only two people in your life you should lie to… the police and your girlfriend.

I’ve seen my own death in dreams like this and it’s helped me appreciate life more. I’ve also seen my own life in dreams and it’s helped me appreciate death more.

Well, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I haven’t been a rogue most of my life.