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

-Lance Armstrong

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No One Automatically Gives

Lance Armstrong

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

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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.

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.

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

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.

It's Tougher For Me. But I Don't Think That's Imperative To Me Starting A New Movement, Or Revive An Old Movement, To Help People.

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.

Extraordinary Allegations Require Extraordinary Evidence.

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

I Will Spend The Rest Of My Life Trying To Earn Back Trust And Apologize To People.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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 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.

Me And Running Don’t Always See Eye To Eye. Some Days It Hurts More Than Others. But It Doesn’t Mean I Don’t Do It. I Deal With It And I Keep Running Because Not Everything That Is Good For You, Always Feels Good For You.

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

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

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

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.

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.

I'm Cycling To Take Cancer Message Worldwide.

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

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

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

My Advice To You Is Never Stop Believing.

Never Stop Believing

There Was Certainly A Dishonesty There That I Think Is Totally Regrettable And Inexcusable. The Ringleading, The Bullying: Not Totally True.

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.

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

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

Unfair Advantage

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

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

What Ever Your 100% Looks Like, Give It.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Hope That Is The Only Antidote To Fear.

There Were Something Like 50 Good, Arduous Climbs Around Nice, Solid Inclines Of Ten Miles Or More. The Trick Was Not To Climb Every Once In Awhile, But To Climb Repeatedly. I Would Do Three Different Climbs In One Day, Over The Course Of A Six- Or Seven-hour Ride. A 12 Mile Climb Took About An Hour, So That Tells You What My Days Were Like.

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.

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

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 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.

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

There Were No Shortcuts, I Realized. It Took Years Of Racing To Build Up The Mind And Body And Character Until A Rider Had Logged Hundreds Of Races And Thousands Of Miles Of Road. I Wouldn't Be Able To Win A Tour De France Until I Had Enough Iron In My Legs, And Lungs, And Brain And Heart.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

I'm Not Trying To Justify Myself, Or Say I'm Not Sorry, Or Not Contrite.

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

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

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.

On A Friendship With Former President George W. Bush: He's A Personal Friend, But We've All Got The Right Not To Agree With Our Friends.

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

Pain Is Only Temporary. Quitting Is Forever!

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

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.

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

[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.

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

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

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

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

Enough Is Enough

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

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

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.

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

We Have Unrealized Capacities That Sometimes Only Emerge In Crisis.

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

Knowledge And Power

I Tried To Control The Narrative.

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.

It Works Better For Me To Be Nervous And Hungry.

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.

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

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

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.

The Biggest Losers Are Those Who Care Only About Winning.

Average Is Your Enemy.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Regardless Of One Victory, Two Victories, Four Victories, There's Never Been A Victory By A Cancer Survivor. That's A Fact That Hopefully I'll Be Remembered For.

Athletes Don't Have Much Use For Poking Around In Their Childhoods, Because, Introspection Doesn't Get You Anywhere In A Race.

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

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

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.

Portland, Oregon Won't Build A Mile Of Road Without A Mile Of Bike Path. You Can Commute There, Even With That Weather, All The Time.

Portland Oregon

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.

Pain Is Temporary. Quitting Lasts Forever.

The Question Was, Which Would The Chemo Kill First: The Cancer Or Me?

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

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

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

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.

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

Hey. Pain Can Last A Moment, It Can Last A Day, It Can Last A Week, It Can Last A Long..long Time, But It Can't Last Forever And The Only Thing That Can Last Forever Is If You Quit.

How Do You Fight An Invisible Opponent Like Suspicion?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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, 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.

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.

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.

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

Fear Is Priceless Education.

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.

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

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'.

A Boo Is A Lot Louder Than A Cheer.

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.

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.

Yellow Wakes Me Up In The Morning. Yellow Gets Me On The Bike Every Day. Yellow Has Taught Me The True Meaning Of Sacrifice. Yellow Makes Me Suffer. Yellow Is The Reason I'm Here.

What Is Stronger, Fear Or Hope?

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

Giving Up Was Never An Option

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

We Are Much Better Than We Know.

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.

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

It's Something I Find Enjoyable. Whether It Is A Road Bike Or Mountain Bike Or Tandem Bike. I Enjoy Riding A Bike.

Losing And Dying: It's The Same Thing.

I'm Not A Patient Person.

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

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.

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.

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.

At Least I Didn't Invent A Dead Girlfriend

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

[the] Pain Is Temporary. It May Last A Minute, An Hour, A Day, Or A Year, But Eventually It Subsides. And When It Does, Something Else Takes Its Place, And That Thing Might Be Called A Greater Space For Happiness ... Each Time We Overcome Pain, I Believe That We Grow.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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.

The Riskiest Thing You Can Do Is Get Greedy.

I Become A Happier Man Each Time I Suffer

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

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.

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

I Wanted To Live, But Whether I Would Or Not Was Mystery, And In The Midst Of Confronting That Fact, Even At That Moment, I Was Beginning To Sense That To Stare Into The Heart Of Such A Fearful Mystery Wasn't A Bad Thing. To Be Afraid Is A Priceless Education. P 99

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.

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.

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.

I Still Don't Get Golf.

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