Take pride in exactly what it is you do and remember it's okay to fail as long as you don't give up.

The decathlon includes ten separate events and they all matter. You can't work on just one of them.

It really means a lot that I won the gold medal - but I woke up the next morning expecting to feel different. I felt the same.

I always know where the scissors are.

And there is such a thing as a decathlon high. It's like a rock rolling down hill, picking up momentum. You get better and better.

It took me time to realize that the men who won Olympic gold medals in the decathlon are just men, just like me.

Try everything, because you're never sure what you're going to be great at.

To me, the decathlon is its own little society and I am part of that culture.

When I was little, I wasn't allowed to put sugar on my breakfast cereal because it made me so hyper.

Breaking the world record in '92 was a very special personal moment, but I'd say my favorite moment as a decathlete was winning the Olympic gold medal.

It's important for me to think I'm mixed-race.

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage.

If you want to be successful, put yourself in a discomfort zone.

Congress is headed in the wrong direction with this bill which removes any and all incentives from the food industry to improve their products for children.

If "Thou shalt not covet," and "Thou shalt not steal," were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.

I don't have designer clothes in my closet. I just wear them once and give them back.

Think of the tools in a tool-box: there is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screwdriver, a rule, a glue-pot, nails and screws.--The function of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects.

Ive lost much of my heart and the spark or fire that once created, or produced, the art of fiction.

Even the genius ask questions.

Happiness is not something that you get in life, hapiness is something that you bring in life