The pride in finishing a marathon is much greater than all the pain endured during the marathon.

There is no such thing as an average runner. We are all above average.

Keep your dream in front of you. Never let it go regardless of how farfetched it might seem.

Even when you have gone as far as you can, and everything hurts, and you are staring at the specter of self-doubt, you can find a bit more strength deep inside you, if you look closely enough.

Hills. We love them. We hate them. They make us strong. They make us weak. Today I chose to embrace hills.

It is not so much that I began to run, but that I continued.

Motivation remains key to the marathon: the motivation to begin; the motivation to continue; the motivation never to quit.

We all have bad days and bad workouts, when running gets ugly, when split times seem slow, when you wonder why you started. It will pass.

The most important day in any running program is rest. Rest days give your muscles time to recover so you can run again. Your muscles build in strength as you rest.

I run, therefore I am. And given the years improved fitness adds to our lives, if I did not run, maybe I would no longer be.

Some runners judge performance by whether they won or lost. Others define success or failure by how fast they ran. Only you can judge your performance. Avoid letting others sit in judgment of you.

Someone called my character the Meg Ryan of the Broken Hearts bunch. Now maybe the perception is that I'm a Meg Ryan type.

I remember perfectly my first trip to New York, when I was on the bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan, when I saw the skyscrapers. It was like an incredible dream.

The muse of music isn't just from Greek mythology, but living in people like the Beatles, Chuck Berry, Anita Baker, Aretha Franklin.

Each time that you don't know you are choosing, then of those choices you are not the chooser.

Dance music has pushed its way into the mainstream. Which is good for me.

All the repetitions in the pattern were superficial; the moment was always new. It had to be lived, and then the next moment embraced as it arrived.

The only reality is God. There cannot be another and God is love.

I can't hang out as loose as I used to, but I can still go down Jefferson Avenue and look in the faces of winos, pimps and junkies, all the things I'm made of.

Friends, you are lucky you can talk about what you did as lovers; the tricks, laughter, the words, the ecstasy. After my darling put his hand on the knot of my dress, I swear I remember nothing.

Possession, it is true, crowns exertion with rest; but it is only in the illusions of fancy that it has power to charm us.