When I was first running marathons, we were sailing on a flat earth. We were afraid we'd get big legs, grow mustaches, not get boyfriends, not be able to have babies. Women thought that something would happen to them, that they'd break down or turn into men, something shadowy, when they were only limited by their own society's sense of limitations.

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A lack of forgiveness is a waste of time and it's very enriching to forgive and move on but those are things that come with time.

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All you need is the courage to believe in yourself and put one foot in front of the other.

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If you feel positive, you have a sense of hope. If you have hope, you can have courage.

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Women were afraid and they would never even imagine running a marathon in 1967.

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I do forgive people when they get it right, even people who in the past I thought were unforgivable.

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A picture, of Jock Semple kissed me,appeared in The New York Times the next day after Boston Marathon in 1973, and the caption was "The end of an era.

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I don't have any kids of my own, quite by choice. There are two reasons for that. One, I had a sense of obligation for what my life would be and a vision of how to get that accomplished and it didn't include children. It's not that I don't like them, it's just that if you have them, they deserve 100 per cent of your attention.

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Life is for participating, not for spectating.

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When I finished the Boston race in 1967, there were two things I wanted to do. I wanted to become a better athlete because my first marathon was 4:20. In those days, that was considered a jogging time and I knew people were going to tease me. But I was more fascinated with what women could do if they only had the chance.

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