“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.”

I’m going to work so that it’s a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it.

What I want is to be number one.

No matter how hard you train, Somebody will train harder. No matter how hard you run, Somebody will run harder. No matter how hard you want it, Somebody will want it more, I am Somebody.

A race is a work of art that people can look at and be affected in as many ways they’re capable of understanding.

Every once in a while I think, ‘What am I doing out here running, busting myself up? Life could be so much easier. The other guys are out having fun, doing other things, why not me?’

Having a true faith is the most difficult thing in the world. Many will try to take it from you.

You have to wonder at times what you’re doing out there. Over the years, I’ve given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started. It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement.

What I like most about track is the feeling I get after a good run.

You said I was weak. You said I couldn’t do it. Thank you. You gave me everything I needed to prove you wrong.

Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run.

I’ve been in international competition, and now I know what the big boys can do. You don’t go out and just run. There’s an offense and a defense.

I don’t just go out there and run. I like to give people watching something exciting.

You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back.

Nobody likes tainted victories.

I like to make something beautiful when I run … it’s style. It’s doing something better than anyone else. It’s being creative.

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

Until one looks back on one’s own past one fails to realise what an extraordinary view of the world a child has.

When I was a little kid, all I wanted to do was to escape what I thought was the country and get to a city. Probably film and television had influenced me so much, I really thought the key to happiness was living a very artificial life in a penthouse in New York with martini glasses.

Past certain ages or certain wisdoms it is very difficult to look with wonder; it is best done when one is a child; after that, and if you are lucky, you will find a bridge of childhood and walk across it.

I like skiing and surfing with kids. They are the cutest little skiers out there, in their little outfits. I just want to eat ’em up!

All through the depression, I was the soft toy in the hands of a baby with sharp teeth.

Yet they that know all things but know That all this life can give us is, A child’s laughter, a woman’s kiss.

He who can reach a child’s heart can reach the worlds heart.

Gospel music was the thing that inspired me as a child growing up on a cotton farm, where work was drudgery and it was so hard that when I was in the field I sang all the time.