They say things like they don’t want men opening doors for them anymore, and they don’t want men lighting their cigarettes for them anymore. Big deal. Black women have been opening doors for themselves and...

When I was going through my transition of being famous, I tried to ask God why was I here? what was my purpose? Surely, it wasn’t just to win three gold medals. There has to...

When the sun is shining I can do anything; no mountain is too high, no trouble too difficult to overcome.

I’m in my prime. There’s no goal too far, no mountain too high.

The triumph can’t be had without the struggle.

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.

It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to accomplish. It’s all a matter of discipline. I was determined to discover what life held for me beyond the inner-city streets.

The triumph cannot 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...

I know black women in Tennessee who have worked all their lives, from the time they were twelve years old to the day they died. These women don’t listen to the women’s liberation rhetoric because...

Sometimes it takes years to really grasp what has happened to your life.

My mother taught me very early to believe I could achieve any accomplishment I wanted to. The first was to walk without braces.

I loved the feeling of freedom in running, the fresh air, the feeling that the only person I’m competing with is me.

I don’t know why I run so fast. I just run.

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...

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...

Believe me, the reward is not so great without the struggle.

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...

My doctor told me I would never walk again. My mother told me I would. I believed my mother.

The feeling of accomplishment welled up inside of me, three Olympic gold medals. I knew that was something nobody could ever take away from me, ever.

I believe in me more than anything in this world.

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...

Winning is great but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose.

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.