You need to become more than one type of athlete. You have to be a sprinter, a weight man and a distance guy all in one.

The decathlon includes ten separate events and they all matter. You can't work on just one of them.

To me, the decathlon is its own little society and I am part of that culture.

It's important for me to think I'm mixed-race.

You have to be able to be a good loser. You have to be okay knowing you're going to fail every day in something without getting mad and upset.

As a young athlete, it was first about having fun; then it was about winning.

Through everything I've gone through- and I've been everywhere, at the top of the world, in jail, hung over drunk - I never gave up my dream of winning a gold medal in the Olympics.

I think what my parents did was perfect. They were strict, concerned about my safety and held me back just a little.

It really means a lot that I won the gold medal - but I woke up the next morning expecting to feel different. I felt the same.

It took me time to realize that the men who won Olympic gold medals in the decathlon are just men, just like me.

Take pride in exactly what it is you do and remember it's okay to fail as long as you don't give up.

You need to become more than one type of athlete. You have to be a sprinter, a weight man and a distance guy all in one.

If you never give up, you'll be successful.

When I was little, I wasn't allowed to put sugar on my breakfast cereal because it made me so hyper.

And there is such a thing as a decathlon high. It's like a rock rolling down hill, picking up momentum. You get better and better.

I call myself a chameleon.

There is nothing better than having a personal-best day, being in shape and pushing myself beyond my own limits.

As a young child, I was never a crier. I never cried to get my way, or even when I was in pain.

As athletes, we're defined by what we've accomplished. Those are what most people remember and what you get paid for. But I learned more from my failures than from all of my successes put together - failures as an athlete and as a person.

Breaking the world record in '92 was a very special personal moment, but I'd say my favorite moment as a decathlete was winning the Olympic gold medal.

I got interested in decathlon because a coach that I had was a big fan of Bruce Jenner, and he just saw the ability in me - but when it came down to it, I knew my best chance at a college scholarship would be in track and field.

I just love playing so much, competing so much. You're able to put your losses behind you. One of the greatest attributes a decathlete can have is the ability to forget... to look ahead, not behind.

I was a good decathlete until I got with a coach that really knew how to train specifically for the event... I'd really describe it as like being a juggler; you have ten balls and you're trying to get them all in the air at the same time.

I was playing little league baseball when Bruce Jenner was winning the gold but I don't think I was really paying attention at that time.

I've always had to have some kind of failure before I was successful.

Try everything, because you're never sure what you're going to be great at.

When first starting to work with someone you try to get them in the same mindset that you were in when you were successful, and I realized the best thing you can ever do is realize that they are not you. They have a different persona and mindset, and you have to figure out what works best within your communication with that athlete.

If it were not for chiropractic I would not have won the gold medal.

Roosevelt's magic lay in one facet of his personality: He knew how to take the risk. No other man in public life I knew could so readily take the challenge of the new.

Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.

Photography is a major force in explaining man to man.

The world is... the natural setting of, and field for, all my thoughts and all my explicit perceptions. Truth does not inhabit only the inner man, or more accurately, there is no inner man, man is in the world, and only in the world does he know himself.

I am neither a child, a young man, nor an ancient; nor am I of any caste.

I want the municipality to be a helping hand to the man with a desire of sympathy, to help the fallen when it is not in their power to help themselves.

I always looked for a man to rescue me and bring me happiness. I bought into that myth, of course, and looked for my own Prince Charming.

A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.

Let me first state that I believe that marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman.

A man must be strong in that profession, he must have vigor of body and mind, yet I am all out of breath if I walk up a hill; I have not the heart to crush even a fly.

An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.

I believe that if a man does a job as well as a woman, he should be paid as much.

For a man to strike any women is most brutal, and I, as well as everyone else, think this far worse than any attempt to shoot, which, wicked as it is, is at least more comprehensible and more courageous.

There is always a type of man who says he loves his fellow men, and expects to make a living at it.

A man may be in as just possession of truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender.

The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.

If a man is dumb, someone is going to get the best of him, so why not you? If you don't, you're as dumb as he is.

Happy the man who has been able to learn the causes of things.

Work is not man's punishment. It is his reward and his strength and his pleasure.

'Thou shalt not get found out' is not one of God's commandments; and no man can be saved by trying to keep it.