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.

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

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.

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.

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?

I run to see who has the most guts.

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

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.

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

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?'

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Nobody likes tainted victories.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.

Achievement is not always success, while reputed failure often is. It is honest endeavor, persistent effort to do the best possible under any and all circumstances.

Dissatisfaction with possession and achievement is one of the requisites to further achievement.

There is no personal achievement in being born beautiful.

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

My proudest achievement has been the success of the shows and artists I have been involved with, because they were made in Britain.

The salary of the chief executive of a large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself.

Immortality is not a gift, Immortality is an achievement; And only those who strive mightily Shall possess it.

My real achievement is my daughter and my three beautiful grandchildren.

Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.

Liberalism regards life as an adventure in which we must take risks in new situation, in which there is no guarantee that the new will always be the good or the true, in which progress is a precarious achievement rather than inevitability.

Coming to understand a painting or a symphony in an unfamiliar style, to recognize the work of an artist or school, to see or hear in new ways, is as cognitive an achievement as learning to read or write or add.

The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.

For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.

The mind must see visual achievement of the purpose before action is initiated.

Creativity is a great motivator because it makes people interested in what they are doing. Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea. Creativity gives the possibility of some sort of achievement to everyone. Creativity makes life more fun and more interesting.