“The world, we'd discovered, doesn't love you like your family loves you.”

“Someone who doesn't make the (Olympic) team might weep and collapse. In my day no one fell on the track and cried like a baby. We lost gracefully. And when someone won, he didn't act like he'd just become king of the world, either. Athletes in my day were simply humble in our victory.I believe we were more mature then...Maybe it's because the media puts so much pressure on athletes; maybe it's also the money. In my day we competed for the love of the sport...In my day we patted the guy who beat us on the back, wished him well, and that was it.”

“Yet a part of you still believes you can fight and survive no matter what your mind knows. It's not so strange. Where there's still life, there's still hope. What happens is up to God.”

“The one who forgives never brings up the past to that person's face. When you forgive, it's like it never happened. True forgiveness is complete and total.”

“All I want to tell young people is that you're not going to be anything in life unless you learn to commit to a goal. You have to reach deep within yourself to see if you are willing to make the sacrifices.”

“All I knew was that hate was so deadly as any poison and did no one any good. You had to control and eliminate it, if you could.”

“I think the hardest thing in life is to forgive. Hate is self destructive. If you hate somebody, you're not hurting the person you hate, you're hurting yourself. It's a healing, actually, it's a real healing...forgiveness.”