“In a pack sprint to the finish line, a solo rider without allies or associates is a tired & losing one.”

“What losing does is, it restores the perspective.”

“Anyone who imagines they can work alone winds up surrounded by nothing but rivals, without companions. The fact is, no one ascends alone.”

“For most of my life I had operated under a simple schematic of winning and losing, but cancer was teaching me a tolerance for ambiguities.”

“Some things you can't win, though I don't like to admit it. I'm not used to losing much of anything, whether its a race or a debate, but among the things that I nearly lost are my life, my neck, and my good name, and I've gained a realization: a life of unbroken success is not only impossible, it's probably not even good for you...”

“When you win, you don't examine it very much, except to congratulate yourself. You easily, and wrongly, assume it has something to do with your rare qualities as a person. But winning only measures how hard you've worked and how physically talented you are; it doesn't particularly define you beyond those characteristics.Losing on the other hand, really does say something about who you are. Among other things it measures are: do you blame others, or do you own the loss? Do you analyze your failure, or just complain about bad luck?If you're willing to examine failure, and to look not just at your outward physical performance, but your internal workings, too, losing can be valuable. How you behave in those moments can perhaps be more self-defining than winning could ever be. Sometimes losing shows you for who you really are.”

“My mother told me...if you're going to get anywhere, you're going to have to do it yourself, because no one is going to do it for you.”