“Running gives me confidence.”

Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it.

I can endure more pain then anyone you’ve met. That’s why I win, because I can endure more pain.

Don’t let fatigue make a coward of you.

As far as being a coach, it’s always fascinated me. It’s a greater responsibility than most people give it credit for because you’re dealing with people.

What kind of crazy nut would spend two or three hours a day just running?

A race is a work of art.

If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

Kids made fun of me because I was a slow learner, because I was hyperactive, because of a lot of things. Running gave me confidence.

A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more.

The idea of losing the three at Hayward Field and the idea of losing my specialty to someone who wasn’t running his specialty. Mostly, the idea of losing in front of my people. They haven’t forgotten about me.

If he’s having a good day and running the right race, nobody can beat Frank Shorter at 10,000 meters, nobody except me.

To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.

Don’t be afraid to give up the good for the great.

No one will ever win a 5,000-meter by running an easy two miles. Not against me.

I run to see who has the most guts.

Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run. I like to make people stop and say, ‘I’ve never seen anyone run like that before.’ It’s more than just a race, it’s a style. It’s doing something better than anyone else. It’s being creative.

Quiet those whispers that tell you, you’re not good enough.

If you are wearing a JoJo bow, you are a Siwanator. If you are a Siwanator, then you are nice, powerful, confident, and believe in yourself.

Imagination, on the contrary, which is ever wandering beyond the bounds of truth, joined to self-love and that self-confidence we are so apt to indulge, prompt us to draw conclusions which are not immediately derived from facts.

It’s a very hard goal. But, what I want is to tell people who are getting bullied to stand up to the bully and not let it be OK – tell a teacher, the principal, or your parents. I want people to stand up and to be confident.

The worst thing any of us can do for our self-esteem is compare ourselves to others, and that’s especially true of women.

Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot.

No shade to the other artists in Chicago, but if you got confidence in yourself and you know you’re Number One, say it.

The family feuds or the village feuds often had to do with an idea of honor. Perhaps it was a peasant idea; perhaps this idea of honor is especially important to a society without recourse to law or without confidence in law.