FLORENCE GRIFFITH JOYNER

To do justice to a lifelong dream of being a writer, I must give it the intense concentration and focus I gave to track. To do both with excellence is not possible. It is with a sense of sadness and joyous anticipation that I leave track and move on.

I couldn't wait until I grew up. I used to look at my mom's stockings and put them on with her high heels and mess with my hair.

If you want to run as fast as the men, you've got to train like the men.

I don't do drugs. I never have taken any drugs. I don't believe in them.

I believe in the impossible because no one else does.

That's what I'd like to do on the President's Council. Make sports and athletics available to every youth in America, not just one day a week like it was for me, but every day.

I used to be teased for the way I wore my hair at school. I used to do things like wear a different-colored sock on each leg.

I've always overworked in the weight room. I love working with weights. I knew they'd give me the strength I needed.

People want to think that staying in shape costs a lot of money. They couldn't be more wrong. It doesn't cost anything to walk. And it's probably a lot cheaper to go to the corner store and buy vegetables than take a family out for fast food.

I was always doing something physical. My brothers and I used to have handstand contests. We'd walk around the projects on our hands and see who could get the farthest. I was always playing football with them, basketball or racing in the street.

Conventional is not for me. I like things that are uniquely Flo. I like being different.

The main reason I wanted to be successful was to get out of the ghetto. My parents helped direct my path.

A muscle is like a car. If you want it to run well early in the morning, you have to warm it up.

I like being unconventional.

I don't always have the best eating habits. I like butter and ice cream. There are days when I should work out and I don't. But it's never too late to change old habits.

I have been running since I was 7. I was trying to restructure the way my body was made instead of trying to master the way I ran. I would get so frustrated with my starts in practices that I would just cry. When I ran, I wouldn't even try to get out of the blocks, I would just run.

I love working with kids, talking with them and listening to them. I always encourage kids to reach beyond their dreams. Don't try to be like me. Be better than me.

When anyone tells me I can't do anything... I'm just not listening any more.

When you first get a hill in sight, look at the top of it only once. Then imagine yourself at the bottom of the other side.

I don't look at myself as being famous. I look at myself as an athlete. If the money is there, I'd be happy, but I have to be happy within myself first.

Injuries made me a believer in cross-training.

I pray hard, work hard, and leave the rest to God.

I know what I have to do, and I'm going to do whatever it takes. If I do it, I'll come out a winner, and it doesn't matter what anyone else does.

You were born to run. Maybe not that fast, maybe not that far, maybe not as efficiently as others. But to get up and move, to fire up that entire energy-producing, oxygen-delivering, bone-strengthening process we call running.

People don't pay much attention to you when you are second best. I wanted to see what it felt like to be number one.