Sometimes you have to resist working on your strengths in favour of your weaknesses. The decathlon requires a wide range of skills.

Sport fosters many things that are good; teamwork and leadership.

The only limitations are mental. The guy who thinks positively will win.

I'm competitive - that's what defines me - and I love it.

I don't even have my own computer.

If you don't want to grow old, then slow down the slowing down process.

I have the mentality of a winner. I first went to the Olympic Games when I was 17, three weeks after my O-levels, and I remember sitting in a dining-hall filled with the world's best athletes.

Being a decathlete is like having ten girlfriends. You have to love them all, and you can't afford losing one.

Having the ambition of becoming Olympic champion is a whole different ambition from wanting to be the greatest.

Los Angeles was great fun because it was the polar opposite of Moscow in 1980. It was sunny and bright, lots of colours around, whereas Moscow was dark and oppressive.

When I lost my decathlon world record I took it like a man. I only cried for ten hours.

Good work, like good talk or any other form of worthwhile human relationship, depends upon being able to assume an extended shared world.

The most influential of all educational factor is the conversation in a child's home.

Sometimes, I miss so much the person that I was before the world tore me up in so many places. If only "they" could have just let me stay that way.

You can't reverse fame. You can lose all the money, but you'll never lose people knowing you.

The middle class is collapsing and we are moving toward an oligarchic form of society, where the billionaires will control the economy and the political life of the country.

Happiness is attained by three things: being patient when tested, being thankful when receiving a blessing, and being repentant upon sinning.

How sweet Japanese woman is! All the possibilities of the race for goodness seem to be concentrated in her.

A man is the whole encyclopedia of facts.

Only unsolvable problems are worthy of artificial intelligence.

One must spoil as many canvases as one succeeds with.