Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.

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I ran and ran and ran every day, and I acquired this sense of determination, this sense of spirit that I would never, never give up, no matter what else happened.

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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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Sometimes it takes years to really grasp what has happened to your life.

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

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I loved the feeling of freedom in running, the fresh air, the feeling that the only person I'm competing with is me.

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i thought I'd never get to see that. Florence Griffith Joyner -- every time she ran, I ran.

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When I was going through my transition of being famous, I tried to ask God, why was I here? What was my purpose? Surely, it wasn't just to win three gold medals. There has to be more to this life than that.

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