I became a great runner because if you're a kid in Leeds and your name is Sebastian you've got to become a great runner.

To anyone who has started out on a long campaign believing that the gold medal was destined for him, the feeling when, all of a sudden, the medal has gone somewhere else is quite indescribable.

All pressure is self-inflicted. It's what you make of it or how you let it rub off on you.

Competing is exciting and winning is exhilarating, but the true prize will always be the self-knowledge and understanding that you have gained along the way.

The nine inches right here; set it straight and you can beat anybody in the world.

Vision is a romantic thing. We have got into 'talent identification'. I am much more interested in passion - finding people who are really excited about doing something.

Sport is a universal language, building more bridges between people than anything else I can think of.

Tomorrow is another day, and there will be another battle!

If you lived in Sheffield and were called Sebastian, you had to learn to run fast at a very early stage.

World records are only borrowed.

Blink and you miss a sprint. The 10,000 meters is lap after lap of waiting. Theatrically, the mile is just the right length: beginning, middle, end, a story unfolding.

I am a fan of humanity and its all-encompassing beauty.

I always thought eating was a ridiculous activity anyway. I'd get out of it myself if I could, though you've got to do it to stay alive, they tell me.

Whence? wither? why? how? - these questions cover all philosophy.

Simplicity is about clarity of thought and being willing to stay in a problem long enough to come to a solution, though it could be right in front of you.

If the bubbles contain a misconception, as they always do, then it can't be maintained forever.

I had realized in the meantime that action too has its difficulties, and that one can also be led to it by neurosis. We are not saved by politics any more than by literature.

God's training ground, where the missionary weapons are found, is the hidden, personal, worshiping life of the saint.

He who has suffered shipwreck, fears to sail Upon the seas, though with a gentle gale.

Politics is but the common pulse-beat, of which revolution is the fever-spasm.