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I Want To Die At A Hundred Years Old With An American Flag On My Back And The Star Of Texas On My Helmet, After Screaming Down An Alpine Descent On A Bicycle At 75 Miles Per Hour. I Want To Cross One Last Finish Line As My Wife And My Ten Children Applaud, And Then I Want To Lie Down In A Field Of Those Famous French Sunflowers And Gracefully Expire, The Perfect Contradiction To My Once Anticipated Poignant Early Demise.

-Lance Armstrong

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I Want To Die

Lance Armstrong

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I Want To Die At A Hundred Years Old With An American Flag On My Back And The Star Of Texas On My Helmet, After Screaming Down An Alpine Descent On A Bicycle At 75 Miles Per Hour. I Want To Cross One Last Finish Line As My Wife And My Ten Children Applaud, And Then I Want To Lie Down In A Field Of Those Famous French Sunflowers And Gracefully Expire, The Perfect Contradiction To My Once Anticipated Poignant Early Demise.

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My Advice To You Is Never Stop Believing.

Never Stop Believing

The Riskiest Thing You Can Do Is Get Greedy.

During Our Lives...we Experience So Many Setbacks, And Fight Such A Hand-to-hand Battle With Failure, Head Down In The Rain, Just Trying To Stay Upright And To Have A Little Hope.

There Was More Happiness In The Process, In The Build, In The Preparation. The Winning Was Almost Phoned In.

Winning Is About Heart, Not Just Legs. It's Got To Be In The Right Place.

Suffering, I Was Beginning To Think, Was Essential To A Good Life, And As Inextricable From Such A Life As Bliss. It’s A Great Enhancer. It Might Last A Minute, But Eventually It Subsides, And When It Does, Something Else Takes Its Place, And Maybe That Thing Is A Great Space. For Happiness. Each Time I Encountered Suffering, I Believed That I Grew, And Further Defined My Capacities – Not Just My Physical Ones, But My Interior Ones As Well, For Contentment, Friendship, Or Any Other Human Experience.

I May Be In Timeout Forever. But I Hope Not To Be.

It's Funny, Because I Have Periods Where I Just Kind Of Go Dark. I Don't Tweet, I Don't Talk, I Don't Interview, And Then I Have Times Where I Do.

When I Made The Decision - When My Team-mates Made That Decision, When The Whole Peloton Made That Decision - It Was A Bad Decision And An Imperfect Time. But It Happened.

Truth Is, A Triathlete Won The Tour De France Seven Times.

It's Simple. Success Comes From Training Harder, Living Better And Digging Deeper Than The Others.

I Didn't Just Jump Back On The Bike And Win. There Were A Lot Of Ups And Downs, Good Results And Bad Results, But This Time I Didn't Let The Lows Get To Me.

I'm Not A Patient Person.

I Guess If A Person Never Quit When The Going Got Tough, They Wouldn't Have Anything To Regret For The Rest Of Their Life.

Anything Is Possible. You Can Be Told That You Have A 90-percent Chance Or A 50-percent Chance Or A 1-percent Chance, But You Have To Believe, And You Have To Fight.

It's Nice To Win. I'll Never Win Again. I May Have To Take Up Golf - Take On Tiger.

Losing ... Really Does Say Something About Who You Are. Among Other Things It Measures Are: Do You Blame Others, Or Do You Own The Loss? Do You Analyze Your Failure, Or Just Complain About Bad Luck? If You're Willing To Examine Failure, And To Look Not Just At Your Outward Physical Performance, But Your Internal Workings, Too, Losing Can Be Valuable. How You Behave In Those Moments Can Perhaps Be More Self-defining Than Winning Could Ever Be. Sometimes Losing Shows You For Who You Really Are.

A Bike Ride. Yes, That's It! A Simple Bike Ride. It's What I Love To Do And Most Days I Can't Believe They Pay Me To Do It. A Day Is Not The Same Without It.

For 15 Years I Was A Complete Arsehole To A Dozen People. I Said I Would Try And Make It Right With Those People, And Anybody That Gave Me An Audience, I Was There.

Made Plenty Of Mistakes Along The Way - All Of Which I Am Truly Sorry.

The Unwillingness To Accept Anything Short Of Victory, That Underlying Fury, Is The Fundamental Building Block Of My Bottomless Motivation To Succeed. It Is My Credo In All That I Do In Life From Battling Cancer To Bicycle Racing.

My Career Is Going To Be Played Out Year By Year. Will I Be Here In 2004? I Don't Know. The Record Won't Keep Me Here. Happiness Will.

The Truth Is, If You Asked Me To Choose Between Winning The Tour De France And Cancer, I Would Choose Cancer. Odd As It Sounds, I Would Rather Have The Title Of Cancer Survivor Than Winner Of The Tour, Because Of What It Has Done For Me As A Human Being, A Man, A Husband, A Son, And A Father.

I Have Never Had A Single Positive Doping Test, And I Do Not Take Performance-enhancing Drugs.

I Have Never Doped. I Can Say It Again, But I've Said It For Seven Years.

The Way You Live Your Life, The Perspective You Select, Is A Choice You Make Every Single Day When You Wake Up. It's Yours To Decide.

If You Worried About Falling Off The Bike, You'd Never Get On.

We All Want To Be Forgiven. There's A Lot Of Really, Really Bad People Who Want To Be Forgiven But Will Never Be Forgiven, And I Might Be In That Camp.

If You Ever Get A Second Chance In Life For Something, You've Got To Go All The Way.

What Athletes Do May Not Be That Healthy, The Way We Push Our Bodies Completely Over The Edge To The Degrees That Are Not Human. I've Said All Along That I Will Not Live As Long As The Average Person.

Cancer Doesn’t Care If You’re Republican Or Democrat.

I Don't Think History Is Stupid.history Ultimately Rectifies A Lot Of These Things. If You Had To Ask Me What I Think Happens In 50 Years, I Don't Think It Sits Empty In 50 Years. Maybe Somebody Else's Name Is There. But You Can't Leave It Empty.

I Tried To Control The Narrative.

Anyone Who Imagines They Can Work Alone Winds Up Surrounded By Nothing But Rivals, Without Companions. The Fact Is, No One Ascends Alone.

It Works Better For Me To Be Nervous And Hungry.

What Is Stronger, Fear Or Hope?

The Ban Doesn't Have Anything To Do With Livestrong Or My Ability To Work In [the Cancer] Community. Perhaps It Speeds It Up. I Don't Know The Examples In Great Britain Of Athletes Who Have Fallen. I Know The Examples In The United States - The Tiger Woods, The Michael Vicks, Even The Bill Clintons - People Who Are Still Out There Able To Work.

Nineteen Hundred Meters Up There Is Completely Different From1,900 Any Place Else. There's No Air, There's No Oxygen. There's No Vegetation, There's No Life. There's No Life. Rocks. Any Other Climb There's Vegetation, Grass And Trees. Not There On The Ventoux. It's More Like The Moon Than A Mountain.

I'm Not Willing To Put A Percentage On The Chances But I Will No Longer Rule It Out.

Obviously, I Come From One Background, And The People That Design Fitness Equipment Have Been Doing It For Years And Years, And They Know What Works And Doesn't Work.

Nobody Wants To Hear How I Think I've Been Mistreated, Or How I Think My Punishment Should Be Lifted, Or Tweaked, Or Reduced. Nobody Wants To Hear Me Say That, Nobody Cares What I Think About This. I Get It.

Well, You Better Ride Like You Stole Something 'cause You Are About To Win A Stage In The Tour De Fance.

But The Fact Is That I Wouldn't Have Won Even A Single Tour De France Without The Lesson Of Illness. What It Teaches Is This: Pain Is Temporary. Quitting Lasts Forever.

If Children Have The Ability To Ignore All Odds And Percentages, Then Maybe We Can All Learn From Them. When You Think About It, What Other Choice Is There But To Hope? We Have Two Options, Medically And Emotionally: Give Up, Or Fight Like Hell.

What Ever Your 100% Looks Like, Give It.

It Was Great To Fight In Training, Great To Fight In The Race, But You Don't Need To Fight In A Press Conference, Or An Interview, Or A Personal Interaction.

I Am Flawed, Deeply Flawed. I Didn't Invent The [doping] Culture But I Didn't Try To Stop The Culture And That's My Mistake, And That's What I Have To Be Sorry For.

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My Cocktail, So To Speak, Was Only Epo, But Not A Lot, Transfusions And Testosterone.

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I Thought I Knew What Fear Was, Until I Heard The Words 'you Have Cancer'.

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It Gave Me A Chance To Re-evaluate My Life And My Career. Cancer Certainly Gives Things A New Perspective. I Would Not Have Won The Tour De France If I Had Not Had Cancer. It Gave Me New Strength And Focus.

The Ban Is Completely Out Of My Hands. And I Think In Most People's Minds, Even If It's Unrealistic To Them, It's One That I Left Myself With No Choice On.

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Through My Illness I Learned Rejection. I Was Written Off. That Was The Moment I Thought, Okay, Game On. No Prisoners. Everybody's Going Down.

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Portland Oregon

I Got The Three Things I Wanted. I Did My Job, I Worked Hard In The Process, And I Cherish The Memories, And They're Mine.

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Make An Obstacle An Opportunity, Make A Negative A Positive.

You Can Teach Someone How To Control Their Strength, But You Can't Teach Them To Be Strong.

We Have Two Options, Medically And Emotionally: Give Up Or Fight Like Hell.

Hard Work, Sacrifice And Focus Will Never Show Up In Tests.

I Rode, And I Rode, And I Rode. I Rode Like I Had Never Ridden, Punishing My Body Up And Down Every Hill I Could Find. I Rode When No One Else Would Ride.

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I Still Don't Get Golf.

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I Didn't Live A Lot Of Lies, But I Lived One Big One.

How Do You Fight An Invisible Opponent Like Suspicion?

So If There Is A Purpose To The Suffering That Is Cancer, I Think It Must Be This: It's Meant To Improve Us.

I Have Been Dealing With Claims That I Cheated And Had An Unfair Advantage In Winning My Seven Tours Since 1999.

Unfair Advantage

At Least I Didn't Invent A Dead Girlfriend

There Comes A Point In Every Man's Life When He Has To Say: 'enough Is Enough.'

Enough Is Enough

We've All Made Mistakes, They Are Not Toxic And Evil.

The Biggest Losers Are Those Who Care Only About Winning.

What Makes A Great Endurance Athlete Is The Ability To Absorb Potenial Embarrassment, And To Suffer Without Complaint. I Was Discovering That If It Was A Matter Of Gritting My Teeth, Not Caring How It Looked, And Outlasting Everybody Else, I Won. It Didn't Seem To Matter What Sport It Was-in A Straight-ahead, Long-distant Race, I Could Beat Anybody. If It Was A Suffer-fest, I Was Good At It.

If You Go To Wikipedia And You Look At The Tour De France, There's This Huge Block In World War One With No Winners, And There's Another Block In World War Two. And Then It Seems Like There's Another World War.

I Have Never Doped … I Have Competed As An Endurance Athlete For 25 Years With No Spike In Performance, Passed More Than 500 Drug Tests And Never Failed One.

If You're Trying To Hide Something, You Wouldn't Keep Getting Away With It For 10 Years. Nobody Is That Clever.

We Each Cope Differently With The Specter Of Our Deaths. Some People Deny It. Some Pray. Some Numb Themselves With Tequila. I Was Tempted To Do A Little Of Each Of Those Things. But I Think We Are Supposed To Try To Face It Straightforwardly, Armed With Nothing But Courage.

Losing And Dying: It's The Same Thing.

I Realize That There Are Many Variables Outside My Control In My Quest, But Focusing On The Big Goal Down The Road Really Motivates Me. To Help Me Stay Focused, I Set Micro-goals Such As Races Or Training Achievements That Bring Me One Step Closer To Being At My Best For Major Goals

I'm Cycling To Take Cancer Message Worldwide.

People Refer To 'the Good Ol' Days', But I Don't Know What They're Talking About. As Someone Who's Battled Cancer, If I Lived More Than 20 Years Ago, I'd Be A Dead Man.

I Am Just Coming Into My Best Years. This Year I Did New Things; Stretching And Abdominal Work.

Cycling Is A Sport Of The Open Road And Spectators Are Lining That Road.

No One Automatically Gives You Respect Just Because You Show Up. You Have To Earn It

If I Can't Face My Accusers, That's A Joke. We Did That In Medieval Times.

I Think I Bit Off More Than I Could Chew. I Thought The Marathon Would Be Easier. For The Level Of Condition That I Have Now... That Was Without A Doubt The Hardest Physical Thing I Have Ever Done.

I Can Get Up In The Morning And Look Myself In The Mirror And My Family Can Look At Me Too And That's All That Matters.

I Figure The Faster I Pedal, The Faster I Can Retire.

Twenty-plus-year Career, 500 Drug Controls Worldwide, In And Out Of Competition. Never A Failed Test. I Rest My Case.

I Believe That The Mind Powers The Body, And Once The Mind Says We Want To Do It, Then The Body Will Follow.

You Know What They Say, The High Trees Get The Wind.

My Mother Told Me...if You're Going To Get Anywhere, You're Going To Have To Do It Yourself, Because No One Is Going To Do It For You.

Extraordinary Allegations Require Extraordinary Evidence.

My House Is Burned, But I Can See The Sky.

I Look Forward To A Time When Lawyers Aren't In The Top Three Calls Every Day, And All You Care About Is How Your Kids Are Doing In School Or What The Weather's Like And The Great Day You Had With Your Family.

The Tour (de France) Is Essentially A Math Problem, A 2,000-mile Race Over Three Weeks That's Sometimes Won By A Margin Of A Minute Or Less. How Do You Propel Yourself Through Space On A Bicycle, Sometimes Steeply Uphill, At A Speed Sustainable For Three Weeks? Every Second Counts.

I Exercise Everyday. I Swim, I Bike, I Run And I Go To The Gym.

To All The Cynics, I'm Sorry For You. I'm Sorry You Can't Believe In Miracles. This Is A Great Sporting Event And Hard Work Wins It.

Your Past Forms You, Whether You Like It Or Not. Each Encounter And Experience Has Its Own Effect, And You're Shaped The Way The Wind Shapes A Mesquite Tree On A Plain.

Pain Is Temporary. Eventually It Will Subside. If I Quit, However, The Surrender Stays With Me.

In My Most Painful Moments On The Bike, I Am At My Most Curious And I Wonder Each And Every Time How I Will Respond.

Painful Moments

My Greatest Point Is My Persistence... However Down I Am, I Fight Until The Last Ball.

A Bicycle Is The Long-sought Means Of Transportation For All Of Us Who Have Runaway Hearts.

Evan Handler Is A Man Who’s Looked Into The Abyss And Laughed. His Book, It’s Only Temporary, Made Me Laugh Along With Him. He Covers Love, Lust, Showbiz, Triumph, And Despair – And He Manages To Be Both Funny And Inspiring About All Of It. It’s An Important Book That I Think Can Help To Spread Goodness Around The World. Something We Desperately Need.

Two Things Scare Me. The First Is Getting Hurt. But That's Not Nearly As Scary As The Second, Which Is Losing.

Do It Even If You Shouldn't, Do It Becuase You Want To, Do It Becuase It Will Make Things Better.

It's Ironic, I Used To Ride My Bike To Make A Living. Now I Just Want To Live So That I Can Ride.

We Have Unrealized Capacities That Sometimes Only Emerge In Crisis.

Pain Is Temporary. Quitting Lasts Forever.

We Sped On, Across The Plains, Toward Metz. I Hung Back, Saving Myself. It Is Called The Race Of Truth. The Early Stages Separate The Strong Riders From The Weak. Now The Weak Would Be Eliminated Altogether.

The Day It All Changed. The Day I Stated Never To Take Anything For Granted. The Day I Learned To Take Charge Of My Life. It Was The Day I Was Diagnosed With Cancer.

Nobody Is Going To Feel Sorry For Me If I've Lost A Dollar Or $100m.

One Of The Redeeming Things About Being An Athlete Is Redefining What Is Humanly Possible.

The Last Thing I'll Say For The People That Don't Believe In Cycling, The Cynics And The Sceptics, I'm Sorry For You. I'm Sorry You Can't Dream Big And I'm Sorry You Don't Believe In Miracles.

At This Point Of My Life, I'm Not Out To Protect Anybody. I'm Out To Protect Seven People, And They All Have The Last Name Armstrong.

If We Don't Somehow Stem The Tide Of Childhood Obesity, We're Going To Have A Huge Problem.

What Matters Is Ultimately What Collectively Those People On The Street - Whether That's The Cycling Community, The Cancer Community - It Matters What They Think.

Nobody Needs To Cry For Me. I'm Going To Be Great.

The Team Wasn't Just Riders. It Was The Mechanics, Masseurs, Chefs, Soigneurs, And Doctors. But The Most Important Man On The Team May Have Been The Chiropractor.

I've Committed To Surfing The Rest Of My Life.

Hope That Is The Only Antidote To Fear.

For Whatever Reason, Maybe It's Because Of My Story, But People Associate Livestrong With Exercise And Physical Fitness, Health And Lifestyle Choices Like That.

Lifestyle Choices

I Don't Think Anybody Else From My Generation Had Federal Agents Standing At Their Door With A Badge And A Gun, Saying: 'you Are Going To Answer My Questions'.

I Want To Finish By Saying That I Intend To Be An Avid Spokesperson For Testicular Cancer Once I Have Beaten The Disease. I Want This To Be A Positive Experience And I Want To Take This Opportunity To Help Others Who Might Someday Suffer From The Same Circumstance I Face Today.

If Life Gives You Lemons, Drink The Juice In Order To Mask The Presence Of Performing-enhancing Drugs.

I've Given Gifts In The Tour De France And It's Come Back To Bit Me. So No Gifts.

It's A Fact That Children With Cancer Have Higher Cure Rates Than Adults With Cancer, And I Wonder If The Reason Is Their Natural, Unthinking Bravery... Adults Know Too Much About Failure; They're More Cynical And Resigned And Fearful.

Fear Is Priceless Education.

The Body Is Telling The Mind To Stop. The Mind Is Telling The Body To Shut Up.

Lance Armstrong Is Not The Biggest Fraud In The History Of World Sport. Us Postal Was Not The Most Sophisticated Doping Programme.

Before My Diagnosis [cancer] I Was A Competitor But Not A Fierce Competitor. When I Was Diagnosed, That Turned Me Into A Fighter.

Forever Is A Big Word. I'm Not Going Anywhere.

For Most Of My Life I Had Operated Under A Simple Schematic Of Winning And Losing, But Cancer Was Teaching Me A Tolerance For Ambiguities.

If There Is A Defining Characteristic Of A Man As Opposed To A Boy, Maybe It's Patience.

I Take Nothing For Granted. I Now Have Only Good Days, Or Great Days.

[a 2005 Response To Doping Allegations] Unfortunately, The Witch Hunt Continues And Tomorrow's Article Is Nothing Short Of Tabloid Journalism. The Paper Even Admits In Its Own Article That The Science In Question Here Is Faulty And That I Have No Way To Defend Myself. They State: 'there Will Therefore Be No Counter-exam Nor Regulatory Prosecutions, In A Strict Sense, Since Defendant's Rights Cannot Be Respected.' I Will Simply Restate What I Have Said Many Times: I Have Never Taken Performance Enhancing Drugs.

What Makes A Great Endurance Athlete Is The Ability To Absorb Potential Embarrassment, And To Suffer Without Complaint.

When You Win, You Don't Examine It Very Much, Except To Congratulate Yourself. You Easily, And Wrongly, Assume It Has Something To Do With Your Rare Qualities As A Person. But Winning Only Measures How Hard You've Worked And How Physically Talented You Are; It Doesn't Particularly Define You Beyond Those Characteristics.

Cycling Is So Hard, The Suffering Is So Intense, That It’s Absolutely Cleansing. The Pain Is So Deep And Strong That A Curtain Descends Over Your Brain….once; Someone Asked Me What Pleasure I Took In Riding For So Long. ‘pleasure???? I Said.’ ‘i Don’t Understand The Question.’ I Didn’t Do It For The Pleasure; I Did It For The Pain.

It's Tough To Be A 15- Or 16-year-old Athlete Competing Around The Country. There's Tension, There's Media. I Had No Idea What I Was Getting Into.

If There Was A God, I'd Still Have Both Nuts.

It's Frustrating In The Sense That I Still Think I Could Be Competing At Some Sport At A Fairly High Level, Which Nobody Cares About. Nobody Wants To Hear Me Say That.

I Guess If I Looked At It From An Athletic Standpoint, I Don't Really Need To Win Another Tour. Seven Tours For Me Was A Dream, Six Broke The Record, So That Eight Doesn't Really Mean Much.

Marathons Are Hard Because Of The Physical Pain, The Pounding On The Muscles, Joints, Tendons.

I'm Sorry You Don't Believe In Miracles.

Live Strong Is Exactly I Guess What It Says. It's One Thing To Live, But It's Another Thing To Live Strong, To Attack The Day And Attack Your Life With A Whole New Attitude. This Was A Gift For Me. I Guess Before The Illness I Just Lived. Now, After The Illness, I Live Strong.

I Want To Die At A Hundred Years Old With An American Flag On My Back And The Star Of Texas On My Helmet, After Screaming Down An Alpine Descent On A Bicycle At 75 Miles Per Hour.

I Raced Because I Was Paid To Do A Job And I Felt Like I Had To Do The Job. Number Two: I Raced Because I Loved The Process, I Loved Training, Getting Ready For The Race, I Loved All Of That. And Number Three I Raced For My Memories. Regardless Of What Somebody Wants To Give Or Take Away, You Can't Take My Memories.

You Know, Once I Was Thinking Of Quitting When I Was Diagnosed With Brain, Lung And Testicular Cancer All At The Same Time. But With The Love And Support Of My Friends And Family, I Got Back On The Bike And Won The Tour De France Five Times In A Row. But I'm Sure You Have A Good Reason To Quit.

Everybody Wants To Know What I'm On. What Am I On? I'm On My Bike Busting My Ass Six Hours A Day. What Are You On?

There's No Rule, No Law, No Regulation That Says You Can't Come Back. So I Have Every Right To Come Back.

My Ruthless Desire To Win At All Costs Served Me Well On The Bike But The Level It Went To, For Whatever Reason, Is A Flaw. That Desire, That Attitude, That Arrogance.

Motivation Can't Take You Very Far If You Don't Have The Legs.

My Mom Was Such A Strong Character. I Don't Want To Say She Was Like A Man, But She Was Tough.

I Didn't Invent The Culture, But I Didn't Try To Stop The Culture.

The Idea That Anybody Was Forced, Or Pressured, Or Encouraged, Is Not True.

My Actions And Reactions, And The Way I Treated Certain Scenarios, Were Way Out Of Line, So I Deserved Some Punishment.

I Joined The Swim Team When I Was 12, And I Was The Worst Kid In The Pool - I Was Put With A Group Of 7-year-olds.

How Many Times Do I Have To Say It? … Well, It Can't Be Any Clearer Than 'i've Never Taken Drugs.'

But, Listen, Eddie Merkyx Would Have Won Six Tours If He Hadn't Been Punched.

Life To Me Is A Series Of False Limits And My Challenge As An Athlete Is To Explore Those Limits

I've Read That I Flew Up The Hills And Mountains Of France. But You Don't Fly Up A Hill. You Struggle Slowly And Painfully Up A Hill, And Maybe, If You Work Very Hard, You Get To The Top Ahead Of Everybody Else.

We Are Much Better Than We Know.

The Europeans Look Down On Raising Your Hands. They Don't Like The End-zone Dance. I Think That's Unfortunate. That Feeling - The Finish Line, The Last Couple Of Meters - Is What Motivates Me.

I Love This Race From The Very Depths Of My Heart. It Gives Me Motivation And It Transcendsme Like Nothing Else In The World.

If I Was Racing In 2015, No, I Wouldn't Do It Again Because I Don't Think You Have To. If You Take Me Back To 1995, When Doping Was Completely Pervasive, I Would Probably Do It Again.

At The End Of The Day, If There Was Indeed Some Body Or Presence Standing There To Judge Me, I Hoped I Would Be Judged On Whether I Had Lived A True Life, Not On Whether I Believed In A Certain Book, Or Whether I'd Been Baptized. If There Was Indeed A God At The End Of My Days, I Hoped He Didn't Say, But You Were Never A Christian, So You're Going The Other Way From Heaven. If So, I Was Going To Reply, You Know What? You're Right. Fine.

Anything Is Possible, But You Have To Believe And You Have To Fight.

That Was My Decision, So I Have To Be Responsible For That. It Was One Of The Biggest Mistakes Of My Life And I Don't Have A Good Reason For Why I Wanted To Come Back, I Don't Have A Good Reason For Doing It All.

I Want To Die At A Hundred Years Old With An American Flag On My Back And The Star Of Texas On My Helmet, After Screaming Down An Alpine Descent On A Bicycle At 75 Miles Per Hour. I Want To Cross One Last Finish Line As My Wife And My Ten Children Applaud, And Then I Want To Lie Down In A Field Of Those Famous French Sunflowers And Gracefully Expire, The Perfect Contradiction To My Once Anticipated Poignant Early Demise.

I Would Love To Be In A Place, And I May Never Get There, Where I Can Help People. It's Something That I Never Really Cared To Advertise. It Got Advertised. I Still Do It On One-on-one Level Almost Daily.

I Believed In Belief, For Its Own Shining Sake. To Believe In The Face Of Utter Hopelessness, Every Article Of Evidence To The Contrary, To Ignore Apparent Catastrophe - What Other Choice Was There? We Do It Every Day, I Realized. We Are So Much Stronger Than We Imagine, And Belief Is One Of The Most Valiant And Long-lived Human Characteristics. To Believe, When All Along We Humans Know That Nothing Can Cure The Briefness Of This Life, That There Is No Remedy For Our Basic Mortality, That Is A Form Of Bravery. To Continue Believing In Yourself, Believing In The Doctors, Believing In Thetreatent, Believing In Whatever I Chose To Believe In, That Was The Most Important Thing.

A Boo Is A Lot Louder Than A Cheer, If You Have 10 People Cheering And One Person Booing, All You Hear Is The Booing.

When I Was Sick, I Didn't Want To Die. When I Race, I Don't Want To Lose. Dying And Losing, It's The Same Thing.

A Boo Is A Lot Louder Than A Cheer.

It Can't Be Any Simpler: The Farewell Is Going To Be On The Champs-elysees.

I Don't Need A Field Of A Thousand People. Anybody Can Tell You That Whoever Needs Help, I'm Happy To Help.

Average Is Your Enemy.

I Know What Happened To My Foundation, From Raising No Money To Raising $500m, Serving Three Million People. Do We Want To Take That Away? I Don't Think Anybody Says Yes.

I Spent A Long Time Trying To Build Up An Organisation [the Lance Armstrong Foundation That Changed Its Name To Livestrong After His Confession] To Help A Lot Of People.

It's A Great Feeling When Someone Like Bernard Hinault Comes Up To You On The Podium To Say 'welcome To The Club

When You Know Your Not Going To Die, You Have To Ask Yourself... What's The Highest And Best Use For Myself.

I Know What Happened To Cycling From 1999 To 2005. I Saw Its Growth, I Saw Its Expansion.

The Answer Is Hard Work. What Are You Doing On Christmas Eve? Are You Riding Your Bike? January 1st - Are You Riding Your Bike?

Riding Your Bike

Nothing Goes To Waste, You Put It All To Use, The Old Wounds And Long-ago Slights Become The Stuff Of Competitive Energy.

Pain Is Only Temporary. Quitting Is Forever!

I Wanted To Win The Tour De France. And When I Won It Once, I Wanted To Do It Again, And Again, And Again, It Just Kept Going. So There Wasn't Another Competitive Environment.

Cancer Taught Me A Plan For More Purposeful Living, And That In Turn Taught Me How To Train And To Win More Purposefully. It Taught Me That Pain Has A Reason, And That Sometimes The Experience Of Losing Things-whether Health Or A Car Or An Old Sense Of Self-has Its Own Value In The Scheme Of Life. Pain And Loss Are Great Enhancers.

Everything In My Life Is In Perspective. Ok, Perspective Ebbs And Flows. I've Had Bad Days, But They Weren't In The Last Years. A Bad Day Is 2 October 1996: 'we've Got Bad News For You, You've Got Advanced Testicular Cancer And You've Got A Coin's Toss Chance Of Survival.' That's A Bad Day.

If A Script Writer Had Come Up With A Story Resembling What You Have Just Achieved, Even The Hollywood Studios Would Have Refused.

Pain Is Temporary. It May Last A Minute, Or An Hour, Or A Day, Or A Year, But Eventually It Will Subside And Something Else Will Take Its Place. If I Quit, However, It Lasts Forever.

Giving Up Was Never An Option

Knowledge Is Power, Community Is Strength And Positive Attitude Is Everything

Knowledge And Power

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Florence Griffith Joyner

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