In sport, if you want to be the best you have to compete against the best - I would much rather have come tenth and be judged against everyone than come first and be judged against just a few.

Sport fosters many things that are good; teamwork and leadership.

The only limitations are mental. The guy who thinks positively will win.

I'm competitive - that's what defines me - and I love it.

I don't even have my own computer.

Sometimes you have to resist working on your strengths in favour of your weaknesses. The decathlon requires a wide range of skills.

If you don't want to grow old, then slow down the slowing down process.

I have the mentality of a winner. I first went to the Olympic Games when I was 17, three weeks after my O-levels, and I remember sitting in a dining-hall filled with the world's best athletes.

Being a decathlete is like having ten girlfriends. You have to love them all, and you can't afford losing one.

Having the ambition of becoming Olympic champion is a whole different ambition from wanting to be the greatest.

Los Angeles was great fun because it was the polar opposite of Moscow in 1980. It was sunny and bright, lots of colours around, whereas Moscow was dark and oppressive.

When an artist friend of mine explained she was working her way up the creative ladder, I asked if she would kindly paint the front of my house on the way up.

I always talk about my ambition with music, and it's to sort of seduce people into listening to sounds they wouldn't normally listen to or want to hear.

The greater your command of brand loyalty, the less you must worry about price sensitivity and competitive promotions-and the less you must pay for marketing.

And then in life, you always have to try, and today, I may not have succeeded, but I am happy to have tried to beat my record.

You must demand nothing less than the best of yourself and for yourself. You must tell yourself that it is not wrong to want it all.

He who says o'er much I love not is in love.

Sleep is over-rated. Have you ever noticed how it's always recommended to people anybody with half a brain can see need to wake up?

The language of the age is never the language of poetry, except among the French, whose verse, where the thought or image does not support it, differs in nothing from prose.

What we call music is what reminds us of ourselves. And sometimes electronic music helps lead the imagination to a space that seems outside of ourselves. But it never really is.

I used to feel guilty about owning a console.