Steve Prefontaine

I know places you better speak low if you've been to college. Men will come across the room and cold-deck you if you hold your glass wrong.

Every once in a while I think, 'What am I doing out here running, busting myself up? Life could be so much easier. The other guys are out having fun, doing other things, why not me?'

I'm the one who has made all the sacrifices. Those are my American records, not the country's.

I like to be able to go out to dinner once in a while. I like to be able to drive my MG up the McKenzie River on a weekday afternoon. I like to be able to pay my bills on time.

I've been in international competition, and now I know what the big boys can do. You don't go out and just run. There's an offense and a defense.

When people go to a track meet, they're looking for something, a world record, something that hasn't been done before. You get all this magnetic energy, people focusing on one thing at the same time. I really get excited about it. It makes me want to compete even more. It makes it all worthwhile, all the hours of hard work.

To hell with love of country - I compete for myself.

To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.

Did you ever run behind a slow pack? You get a trailing wind and a lot of body odor.

Over the years, I've given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started. It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement.

A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more.

You have to wonder at times what you're doing out there. Over the years, I've given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started. It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement.

American athletes, especially distance runners, are at a big disadvantage against the rest of the world. We're expected to live by all the rules, like not being able to coach, but still train and make our own living.

Nobody likes tainted victories.

Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run. I like to make people stop and say, 'I've never seen anyone run like that before.' It's more than just a race, it's a style. It's doing something better than anyone else. It's being creative.

Success isn't how far you got, but the distance you traveled from where you started.

You probably choose x-country because you were too small to play football.

What I want is to be number one.

Something inside of me just said 'Hey, wait a minute, I want to beat him,' and I just took off.

Kids made fun of me because I was a slow learner, because I was hyperactive, because of a lot of things. Running gave me confidence.

No one will ever win a 5,000-meter by running an easy two miles. Not against me.

I'm going to work so that it's a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it.

Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it.

How does a kid from Coos Bay, with one leg longer than the other win races?

For me, running against the Poles and Czechs would be like running against high school kids. And I hate all this gung-ho, run-for-the-red-white-and-blue attitude that the AAU spouts. If that's important to some people, fine, more power to 'em. But, damn it, I wish they'd leave me alone to do what I want to do - run against the best.

Most people run a race to see who is fastest. I run a race to see who has the most guts.

To give anything less than your best, is to sacrifice the gift.

My philosophy is that I'm an artist. I perform an art not with a paint brush or a camera. I perform with bodily movement. Instead of exhibiting my art in a museum or a book or on canvas, I exhibit my art in front of the multitudes.

A race is a work of art that people can look at and be affected in as many ways they're capable of understanding.

People say I should be running for a gold medal for the old red, white and blue and all that bull, but it's not gonna be that way.

I run to see who has the most guts.

If he's having a good day and running the right race, nobody can beat Frank Shorter at 10,000 meters... nobody except me.