Giles Duley Quotes

People used to call the Paralympics the 'Special Olympics.' These men and women are athletes. They are warriors. They are people who are not confined by what they have been given. It's amazing to see where, and how far, the human body can really go.

While paralyzed, I won a gold and three silver medals as a competitive swimmer.

I always said, 'A blind dog with three legs could get a standing ovation for singing 'I'm Still Here!'

I ventured into fiction in 1988 with 'What Love Sees,' a biographical novel of a woman's unwavering determination to lead a full life despite blindness.

I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'

Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile, I caught hell for.

… failure is a very condition of his life; one can never dream of eliminating it without immediately dreaming of death. This does not mean that one should consent to failure, but rather one must consent to struggle against it without respite.

I'm a survivor. I'm a messenger.

Where I came from, there's not a reason to have a lot of hope. So much trouble, everywhere. But every now and then, someone makes it out and makes it big, and that person has an impact on a lot of other people.

The pain that all people experience in life and the light that helps them champion through it all - it's their lives and their stories and their love and will to keep living that moves me to write.

It was a true honor to have represented my country at my first Paralympic Winter Games and proud to bring home gold and silver medals for the U.S.

I was a torch carrier in the 2012 Paralympics and every time I thought 'I can't do this' I would look at the blade runners and the athletes and wheelchairs think, okay, I can run.

Lance Armstrong is the guy that I would put up there as one of my heroes. He's done something that no one else has done and when you put into it what he overcame, it's absolutely unbelievable.

He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.

I learned at a very early age that life is a battle. My family was poor, my neighborhood was poor. The only way that I could get away from the awfulness of life, at that time, was at the movies. There I decided that my big aim was to make money. And it was there that I became a very determined woman.

If my life were a song the title would be 'The Comeback Kid.'

Lance Armstrong, the famous cyclist and more importantly, cancer survivor, has said 'if you ever get a second chance for something, you've got to go all the way.'

I speak to people who have been through so much more.

My life has been a roller coaster ride, but somehow I've always been able to land on my feet and still play the guitar.

Every fighter has a story that could break your heart. We lose, we get hurt and everything comes apart. That's when it's so difficult to stay on the straight and narrow.

When I was about 10, I saw Timothy Bottoms in a tele-movie called 'A Shining Season,' and it really moved me. I was maybe 8 or 9. Timothy played a runner who had cancer, and he defied the odds by coaching a girls' team to victory.

We will not be beaten. But we may be shamed and embarrassed on a needlessly long road to victory.

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.

I've had some wins. And been knocked down with defeats. Glimpsed views from the top of the mountain. And walked through the darkest of valleys. But through this entire ride called 'a life' - I've refused to give up.

Some people with awful cards can be successful because of how they deal with the tragedies they're handed, and that seems courageous to me.