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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.

-Lance Armstrong

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You Know, Once I

Lance Armstrong

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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

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

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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.

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[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.

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

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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.

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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 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'.

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The Riskiest Thing You Can Do Is Get Greedy.

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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.

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What Ever Your 100% Looks Like, Give It.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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Painful Moments

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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.

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

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.

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

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.

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Average Is Your Enemy.

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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.

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.

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