I realized now that militancy in the best sense of the word was the only answer where the black man was concerned, that any black man who wasn't a mi… - Jesse Owens

The only bond worth anything between human beings is their humanness.

If you don’t try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody’s back yard.

To a sprinter, the hundred-yard dash is over in three seconds, not nine or ten. The first "second" is when you come out of the blocks. The next is when you look up and take your first few strides to attain gain position. By that time the race is actually about half over. The final "second" — the longest slice of time in the world for an athlete — is that last half of the race, when you really bear down and see what you're made of. It seems to take an eternity, yet is all over before you can think what's happening.