The triumph can't be had without the struggle. And I know what struggle is. I have spent a lifetime trying to share what it has meant to be a woman first in the world of sports so that other young women have a chance to reach their dreams.

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

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I would be disappointed if I were remembered as a runner because I feelthat my contribution to the youth of America has far exceeded the woman who was the Olympic champion

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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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i had a series of childhood illnesses... scarlet fever.... pneumonia.... Polio. I walked with braces until I was at least nine years old. My life wasn't like the average person who grew up and decided to enter the world of sports.

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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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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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