"Chin held high, Miss Ohio beamed at an imagined crowd. "I want to be a motivational speaker." "What are you going to motivate people to do?" Smile still in place, she cut her eyes at Adina. "You know. Motivational ... stuff."

“You keep seeing your picture on posters that you are missing but you're not. That'd be weird, right? Or say you look down at the sidewalk and earthworms are spelling your name. Or you open a peanut bag and the 'hello' is written in your writing on the inside of the shell. Would that weird ya?”

“I never, ever took you for granted. We met too late for that; I was nearly thirty-three by then, and my past without you was too stark and insistent for me to find the miracle of companionship ordinary.”

“Did you eat a lot of paint chips when you were a kid?”

“When I experienced altered states of consciousness, my whole philosophical structure crumbled, and that terrified me. And what scared me the most was the realisation that death was not the end!”

“What was I drinking last night? Furniture polish?”

“Channel your energy. Focus.”

Source : Carl Lewis, Jeffrey Marx (1992). “Inside track: my professional life in amateur track and field”, Fireside

“I know that in life there will be sickness, devastation, disappointments, heartache - it's a given. What's not a given is the way you choose to get through it all. If you look hard enough, you can always find the bright side.”

“Winning has nothing to do with racing. Most days don't have races anyway. Winning is about struggle and effort and optimism, and never, ever, ever giving up.”

Source : Amby Burfoot (2000). “The Runner's Guide to the Meaning of Life: What 35 Years of Running Have Taught Me About Winning, Losing, Happiness, Humility, and the Human Heart”, p.31, Rodale