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Well, I couldn't play an instrument. I'd just stand up front and announce the numbers. They had me sing a little, but that was a horrible mistake. I can't carry a tune in a bucket. We played black theaters and nightclubs all over hell. One-nighters. Apollo Theater in Harlem and the Earle Theater in Philly - That was big time for blacks.

Jesse Owens

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Jesse Owens
Age: 66 †
Born: 1913
Born: September 12
Died: 1980
Died: March 31
Athletics Competitor
Olympic Athlete
Sprinter
Oakville
Albama
James Cleveland Owens
James Cleveland Jesse Owens
Little
Numbers
Instruments
Harlem
Wells
Stand
Carry
Apollo
Well
Hell
Sing
Blacks
Philly
Play
Mistake
Played
Tune
Nightclubs
Time
Sports
Fronts
Tunes
Theaters
Bigs
Front
Instrument
Bucket
Black
Theater
Athlete
Announce
Littles
Couldn
Horrible
Buckets

More quotes by Jesse Owens

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Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.
Jesse Owens
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Find the good. It's all around you. Find it, showcase it and you'll start believing in it.
Jesse Owens
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Life doesn't give you all the practice races you need.
Jesse Owens
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A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.
Jesse Owens
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I realized now that militancy in the best sense of the word was the only answer where the black man was concerned, that any black man who wasn't a militant in 1970 was either blind or a coward.
Jesse Owens
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When I came back, after all those stories about Hitler and his snub, I came back to my native country, and I could not ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. Now what's the difference?
Jesse Owens
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The secret is, first, get a thoroughbred horse because they are the most nervous animals on earth. Then get the biggest gun you can find and make sure the starter fires that big gun right by the nervous thoroughbred's ear.
Jesse Owens
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Every morning, just like in Alabama, I got up with the sun, ate my breakfast even before my mother and sisters and brothers, and went to school, winter, spring, and fall alike to run and jump and bend my body this way and that for Mr. Charles Riley.
Jesse Owens
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If you don't try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody's back yard. The thrill of competing carries with it the thrill of a gold medal. One wants to win to prove himself the best.
Jesse Owens
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I decided I wasn't going to come down. I was going to fly. I was going to stay up in the air forever.
Jesse Owens
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I always loved running.... It was something you could do by yourself and under your own power.
Jesse Owens
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I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals.
Jesse Owens
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It was bad enough to have toppled from the Olympic heights to make my living competing with animals. But the competition wasn't even fair. No man could beat a race horse, not even for 100 yards.
Jesse Owens
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Only by God?s grace have I made it to see today and only by God?s grace will I ever see tomorrow.
Jesse Owens
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If you don't try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody's back yard.
Jesse Owens
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I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible. From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up.
Jesse Owens
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We must respect the rights and properties of our fellowman. And then learn to play the game of life, as well as the game of athletics, according to the rules of society. If you can take that and put it into practice in the community in which you live, then, to me you have won the greatest championship.
Jesse Owens
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One chance is all you need.
Jesse Owens
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We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.
Jesse Owens
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It dawned on me with blinding brightness. I realized: I had jumped into another rare kind of stratosphere - one that only a handful of people in every generation are lucky enough to know.
Jesse Owens