From the age of seven, I basically started practicing my hand-eye and foot coordination, balance, strength, endurance, discipline, and mental toughness three days a week until I was about 15.

I won't back down. I get a satisfaction from being tested and defeating the test.

If you have done something once, you can do it again or you can do it better. The beauty is the pursuit of the limit, not the limit itself. At least that's what I hope people realize.

The desire definitely comes from within. There are only a few people who make it to this level and those are the ones who have that innate desire.

To do the best that I possibly could in my world makes me pretty happy.

Competition is pretty much the essence of everything, it gives humans drive.

It's important not to make the gold medal bigger than it is.

The thing I like about decathlon is also the thing I dislike: It's the maximum challenge, but also the maximum frustration.

I'm not maximized yet.

I think a challenge for myself is to see how many times I can get above 9,000. That would be a good challenge.

I wouldn't say there was a moment of realization when I wanted to be a runner; it was always just something I was.

Your journey might seem very long and hard, but bear in mind that sooner or later your struggles would become the past, and your rewards would become the present.

Genius is the ability to push one's limits beyond the limits each time, every endeavour.

Basically, if you're not a utopianist, you're a schmuck.

The less serious running of any description which an athlete indulges in before eighteen, the better for his future prospects.

I believe in living, I believe in birth, I believe in the sweat of love and in the fire of truth and I believe that a lost ship, steered by tired, sea sick sailors, can still be guided home to port

Fain would I glide down a gentle river, but I am carried away by a torrent.

The pleasure and joy of man lies in treading down the rebel and conquering the enemy, in tearing him up by the root, in taking from him all that he has.

When we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city...

Losing still hurts, but that's good. When it stops hurting, that's when I stop playing.

I lost some time once. It's always in the last place you look for it.