Black women . . . work because their husbands can't make enough money at their jobs to keep everything going. . . . They don't go to work to find fulfillment, or adventure, or glamour and romance, like so many white women think they are doing. Black women work out of necessity.

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Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.

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The feeling of accomplishment welled up inside of me, three Olympic gold medals. I knew that was something nobody could ever take away from me, ever.

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By the time I was 12 I was challenging every boy in our neighborhood at running, jumping, everything.

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I tell them that the most important aspect is to be yourself and have confidence in yourself.

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My mother taught me very early to believe I could achieve any accomplishment I wanted to. The first was to walk without braces.

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What do you do after you are world-famous and nineteen or twenty and you have sat with prime ministers, kings and queens, the Pope? Do you go back home and take a job? What do you do to keep your sanity? You come back to the real world.

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My doctor told me I would never walk again. My mother told me I would. I believed my mother.

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No matter what great things you accomplish, somebody helps you.

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Believe me, the reward is not so great without the struggle.

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