I'm not interested in athletics, I'm only interested in achievement. Fix your goal and work for it.

Thus I urge you to go onto your greatness if you believe it is in you. Think deeply and separate what you wish from what you are prepared to do.

If the coach cannot do it, he cannot 'teach' it-only talk about it.

The introduction of resistance in form of sand and hill is too important to be ignored.

While a man is racing he must hate himself and his competitors.

Runners don't run with their legs, they run ON their legs. In reality, they run with their Arms!

Run hard, be strong, think big!

If it hurts, make it hurt more.

Ignore, then, whether you are tall and thin or short and stocky- whether they laughed at you at home (where they are often unkind) or at school (where they are mostly blind, anyway). Indeed-to hell with the lot of them if you 'feel' you can do it.

I have found life highly competitive. I accept it. It is useless, merely a hypocritical humbug, to sincerely wish your opponent to win. If you are out to win you are better not wanting to know your opponent, much less grow to like him - and wish him, honestly success over you. I have never functioned that way.

Vincit qui patitur: he conquers, who endures.

The mastery of the true self, and the refusal to permit others to dominate us, is the ultimate in living and self-expression in athletics.

Endurance? You've only got to get out there and do it. Face up to it: man was meant to run.

Hard things take time to do. Impossible things take a little longer.

If you die, I will bury you in the sandhills with all the other runners.