I always liked running as a kid. You know how eating chocolate or ice cream makes you feel good? That's the same way that running and competing makes me feel.

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.

See it first in your mind, then become it.

It's a dangerous thing when someone gets up in the morning and has nothing to eat.

Well the book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the law of the jungle and the sea are your only teachers.

The simple program of Christ for winning the whole world is to make each person he touches magnetic enough with love to draw others.

I'm in favor of immigration but we also need rules.

Time is the only capital of those who just have their inteligence as fortune.

The world just feels different for those of us who come alive after dark. It's more fragile and unreal, a replica of the one everyone else inhabits.

My memories of literary agenting are of a very happy time and there are surprising reminders of it coming back now.

You have to learn to work and search, not expect instantly to find.

Cicero called Aristotle a river of flowing gold, and said of Plato's Dialogues, that if Jupiter were to speak, it would be in language like theirs.