The single biggest change in middle-distance running, from the 1500 metres to 10,000 metres, has been the track surface.

The only tactics I admire are do-or-die

Training was a time where resolutions made in the enthusiasm of an inspired moment were put to personal test.

The important thing is the attitude of the athlete, the desire to get to the top.

I have never been a killer. I'm not an aggressive personality and if I can remember any emotion I felt during a race it was fear. The greatest stimulator of my running was fear.

The greatest stimulator of my running career was fear.

I hadn't a clue who I was racing against. All I knew was how I was going to race.

I knew Queen Elizabeth didn't do any laundry! I knew I wasn't going to be doing laundry. I was going to be singing.

There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally.

Time is too conceptual. Not that it stops us from filling it in. So much so, we can't even tell whether our experiences belong to time or to the world of physical things.

I can't afford to be a member of a golf course.

Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'Here are our monsters,' without immediately turning the monsters into pets.

A nothing day full of wild beauty .... Little fish stream by, a river in water.

Be careful what you're good at doing, because you'll probably do a lot of it.

To get people to compromise, you have to give them stuff.

We have to make ourselves as perfect as we can.

The art of acting is to be other than what you are.