Why race? The need to be tested, perhaps; the need to take risks; and the chance to be number one.

Happiness is different from pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing.

The answer to the big questions in running is the same as the answer to the big questions in life: Do the best with what you've got.

Everyone is an athlete. The only difference is that some of us are in training, and some are not.

Running is just such a monastery- a retreat, a place to commune with God and yourself, a place for psychological and spiritual renewal.

Sweat cleanses from the inside. It comes from places a shower will never reach.

Listen to your body. Do not be a blind and deaf tenant.

The real competition is against the little voice inside you that wants to quit

The difference between a jogger and a runner is an entry blank.

Out on the roads there is fitness and self-discovery and the persons we were destined to be.

I will not last forever. But I am damn well going to know I have been here.

I'm not courting death

I tried to close my ears to the strange worshipful chanting and fix my mind on God, but the Egyptians’ idolatry weighed down my weary shoulders and brought tears to my closed eyes.

It is a bad thing if a writer tackles a subject he does not understand.

Davy was the type of all the jumped-up second-raters of all time.

If you don't love another living soul, then you'll never be disappointed.

There must be something to think about at the end.

When I recite poems onstage, I put myself into the very personal struggle and it grants tremendous perspective. At the same time you get another perspective on the poem you're reciting.

It's awesome where I am right now. It's a lot of people's dream. I'm going to take full advantage of it.

No, It's hard to uproot yourself and really become yourself in another soil, but it's also an opportunity, another kind of growth.

Indifference to the fine arts comes close to barbarism.