We are just not made up to be middle distance runners.

Then I received support from the Government to compete for my country, and to represent Cuba in competition.

We are just not made up to be middle distance runners.

My main point in this regard was to compete for my country and my people and to receive the support of the entire Cuban society, to carry my flag in whatever competition I was in, the Olympic Games, Pan-American Games.

We need to be aware of all aspects: To check how they travel, how they eat, the competition conditions.

If we carry on filling up the calendar, we keep on pushing the athlete, we shorten the athletes longevity. The risk is to shorten a career that could have lasted 10 years because the athlete is burnt out.

The most important part of this is to prepare the athlete for life in general and then be able to compete.

In Cuba we use our champions to promote the sport.

We want to promote the great qualities of athletics - and maintain its integrity - all over the world.

I am always fighting inside the Council to get the message across that at each competition venue, we should send somebody to inspect and to make sure the athletes will be looked after in a correct manner.

And then you have the responsibility and the duty of being good examples to youngsters, not smoke, training hard, go to bed early, don't drink alcohol, don't take drugs, it's very important to have a policy for educating against doping.

Be very strong... be very methodical in your life if you want to be a champion.

We want to make sure our athletes have a future once their athletics careers are over.

I run in practically every single road race in my country, 5k, 10k just to promote the sport.

I love music, and outside of work my family keeps me very busy, I have five children to keep track of.

We do not use managers, we are the representatives of our athletes, and that is why I am deeply involved in athletics, I follow our athletes careers from start to finish, 100% all the way.

I got involved in athletics during physical education lessons at school.

Be very strong, be very methodical in your life if you want to be a champion.

You never know the limit of a human being.

A lot of people give up, but you can't stop me. If you close the door, I'll just jump out the window.

I am only about winning and getting better.

I don't court paparazzi. I definitely don't like that part of it.

Design is not the narrow application of formal skills it is a way of thinking.

I can act normally, and I can go out, but people around you don't act normally. If it was normal, I'd go out and have my dinner and nobody would be video-phoning me eating my dinner.

It isn't a secret that my heart is damaged. All the treatments and medications haven't been effective.

Women are always beautiful.

Sometimes losing a pet is more painful than losing a human because in the case of the pet you were not pretending to love it.

I don't have cable, and it's glorious.

My first taste memory is pickle. Even as a kid, I was really weird. I liked chillis. I used to climb up the shelves in my grandmother's pantry. The pickle jar was kept right at the top. One time, I dropped the jar and it broke. I was totally busted.

I don't think I've done any profound work yet... People ask me, 'How would you want to be remembered?' I tell them I don't want to be remembered! I'm not here to become a Madhubala or receive a Lifetime Achievement Award. I'm not that kind of a person. And I'm not brash about it; it's just the way I am.

I have never taken a road trip. Unless you count Los Angeles to Vegas.

We throw at female artists this expectation that their work has to speak to the female experience. And if it doesn't, you're letting the side down. Throwing this stumbling block in the way of female artists is counterintuitive.

You can't have too much of everything, you must have a balance, that's very important.

Well, I had nightmares when I was doing the Klan story all the time. I had a recurring nightmare of basically being exposed as a Jew inside the Klan compound.

No matter whether it's someone from the political left or right, we just need a voice to stand up and defend animal rights.

You wanted to kill your father in order to be your father yourself. Now you are your father but a dead father.

What would we be without the fans? They're more important than me, because they make our sport great; they make things happen. We put on the show, but if people don't react to it, we are nothing. So, the fans, basically we should roll out the red carpet for them.

All great civilizations, in their early stages, are based on success in war.

I'd really love to work with virtual reality at some point. You could make a killer adventure game with that.

As commentators like the American psychologist Gary Marcus have noted, it's extremely difficult to teach a computer to recognise cats. And that's not for want of trying.

I do think that Japan will be one of the nations that have equality, and that, too, will serve as an example for other Asian nations.

Very early on in the process of trying to sell 'The Summer Prince,' I was told, 'Slavery seems to be very important to this society - is that on purpose?' Well, duh.

I was not popular in school, and I was definitely not a ladies' man. And I had a very painful adolescence, because it was all very strange to me. It wasn't like I got beat up, but the humiliation and isolation, and the existential 'God, I exist, and nobody cares' of being a teenager were extremely pronounced for me.