Lance Armstrong Quotes

What athletes do may not be that healthy, the way we push our bodies completely over the edge to the degrees that are not human. I've said all along that I will not live as long as the average person.

[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.

My career is going to be played out year by year. Will I be here in 2004? I don't know. The record won't keep me here. Happiness will.

Everybody wants to know what I'm on. What am I on? I'm on my bike busting my ass six hours a day. What are you on?

Nobody needs to cry for me. I'm going to be great.

[The] pain is temporary. It may last a minute, an hour, a day, or a year, but eventually it subsides. And when it does, something else takes its place, and that thing might be called a greater space for happiness ... Each time we overcome pain, I believe that we grow.

Life to me is a series of false limits and my challenge as an athlete is to explore those limits

The ban is completely out of my hands. And I think in most people's minds, even if it's unrealistic to them, it's one that I left myself with no choice on.

We have unrealized capacities that sometimes only emerge in crisis.

Cycling is so hard, the suffering is so intense, that it's absolutely cleansing. The pain is so deep and strong that a curtain descends over your brain….Once; someone asked me what pleasure I took in riding for so long. 'PLEASURE???? I said.' 'I don't understand the question.' I didn't do it for the pleasure; I did it for the pain.

What will you do with your wild & precious self?

Marathons are hard because of the physical pain, the pounding on the muscles, joints, tendons.

I thought I knew what fear was, until I heard the words 'You have cancer'.

Anyone who imagines they can work alone winds up surrounded by nothing but rivals, without companions. The fact is, no one ascends alone.

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.

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.

What losing does is, it restores the perspective.

THERE ARE ANGELS on this earth and they come in subtle forms,

Fear is priceless education.

My mother told me ... if you're going to get anywhere, you're going to have to do it yourself, because no one is going to do it for you.

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.

If there is a defining characteristic of a man as opposed to a boy, maybe it's patience.

I've given gifts in the Tour de France and it's come back to bit me. So no gifts.

No one automatically gives you respect just because you show up. You have to earn it

For whatever reason, maybe it's because of my story, but people associate Livestrong with exercise and physical fitness, health and lifestyle choices like that.

Suffering, I was beginning to think, was essential to a good life, and as inextricable from such a life as bliss. It's a great enhancer. It might last a minute, but eventually it subsides, and when it does, something else takes its place, and maybe that thing is a great space. For happiness. Each time I encountered suffering, I believed that I grew, and further defined my capacities – not just my physical ones, but my interior ones as well, for contentment, friendship, or any other human experience.

The answer is hard work. What are you doing on Christmas Eve? Are you riding your bike? January 1st - are you riding your bike?

I'm on JetBlue and United. So I spend a lot of time on airplanes with other people and in terminals or just traveling around and going to restaurants or whatever. The interaction I get on a daily basis is always positive. I've never had a negative interaction.

It's funny, because I have periods where I just kind of go dark. I don't tweet, I don't talk, I don't interview, and then I have times where I do.

I want to die at a hundred years old with an American flag on my back and the star of Texas on my helmet, after screaming down an Alpine descent on a bicycle at 75 miles per hour.

There were no shortcuts, I realized. It took years of racing to build up the mind and body and character until a rider had logged hundreds of races and thousands of miles of road. I wouldn't be able to win a Tour de France until I had enough iron in my legs, and lungs, and brain and Heart.

Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.

Make an obstacle an opportunity, make a negative a positive.

Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. That surrender, even the smallest act of giving up, stays with me. So when I feel like quitting, I ask myself, which would I rather live with?

The riskiest thing you can do is get greedy.

I'm not willing to put a percentage on the chances but I will no longer rule it out.

If I can't face my accusers, that's a joke. We did that in medieval times.

I didn't just jump back on the bike and win. There were a lot of ups and downs, good results and bad results, but this time I didn't let the lows get to me.

If you worried about falling off the bike, you'd never get on.

My mom was such a strong character. I don't want to say she was like a man, but she was tough.

A bicycle is the long-sought means of transportation for all of us who have runaway hearts.

Athletes don't have much use for poking around in their childhoods, because, introspection doesn't get you anywhere in a race.

The question that lingers is, how much was I a factor in my own survival, and how much was science, and how much miracle?
I don't have the answer to that question. Other people look to me for the answer, I know. But if I could answer it, we would have the cure for cancer, and what's more, we would fathom the true meaning of our existences. I can deliver motivation, inspiration, hope, courage, and counsel, but I can't answer the unknowable. Personally, I don't need to try. I 'm content with simply being alive to enjoy the mystery.
Good Joke:
A man is caught in a flood, and as the water rises he climbs to the roof of his house and waits to be rescued. A guy in a motorboat comes by, and he says, "Hop in, I'll save you."
"No thanks," the man on the rooftop says. "My Lord will save me."
But the floodwaters keep rising. A few minutes later, a rescue plane flies overhead and the pilot drops a line.
"No, thanks," the man on the rooftop says. "My Lord will save me."
But the floodwaters rise ever higher, and finally, they overflow the roof and the man drowns.
When he gets to heaven, he confronts God.
"My Lord, why didn't you save me?" he implores.
"You idiot," God says. "I sent a boat, I sent you a plane."
I think in a way we are all just like the guy on the rooftop. Things take place, there is a confluence of events and circumstances, and we can't always know their purpose, or even if there is one. But we can take responsibility f

Regardless of one victory, two victories, four victories, there's never been a victory by a cancer survivor. That's a fact that hopefully I'll be remembered for.

The way you live your life, the perspective you select, is a choice you make every single day when you wake up. It's yours to decide.

I rode, and I rode, and I rode. I rode like I had never ridden, punishing my body up and down every hill I could find. I rode when no one else would ride.

People refer to 'the good ol' days', but I don't know what they're talking about. As someone who's battled cancer, if I lived more than 20 years ago, I'd be a dead man

Nineteen hundred meters up there is completely different from1,900 any place else. There's no air, there's no oxygen. There's no vegetation, there's no life. There's no life. Rocks. Any other climb there's vegetation, grass and trees. Not there on the Ventoux. It's more like the moon than a mountain.

I realize that there are many variables outside my control in my quest, but focusing on the big goal down the road really motivates me. To help me stay focused, I set micro-goals such as races or training achievements that bring me one step closer to being at my best for major goals

I got the three things I wanted. I did my job, I worked hard in the process, and I cherish the memories, and they're mine.

Gibney, we gotta win this fucking Tour de France.

The biggest losers are those who care only about winning.

We each cope differently with the specter of our deaths. Some people deny it. Some pray. Some numb themselves with tequila. I was tempted to do a little of each of those things. But I think we are supposed to try to face it straightforwardly, armed with nothing but courage.

To all the cynics, I'm sorry for you, ... I'm sorry you can't believe in miracles. This is a great sporting event and hard work wins it.

Forever is a big word. I'm not going anywhere.

I wanted to live, but whether I would or not was mystery, and in the midst of confronting that fact, even at that moment, I was beginning to sense that to stare into the heart of such a fearful mystery wasn't a bad thing. To be afraid is a priceless education. P 99

It gave me a chance to re-evaluate my life and my career. Cancer certainly gives things a new perspective. I would not have won the Tour de France if I had not had cancer. It gave me new strength and focus.

Anything is possible. You can be told that you have a 90-percent chance or a 50-percent chance or a 1-percent chance, but you have to believe, and you have to fight.

One of the redeeming things about being an athlete is redefining what is humanly possible.

I'm cycling to take cancer message worldwide.

It's a fact that children with cancer have higher cure rates than adults with cancer, and I wonder if the reason is their natural, unthinking bravery ... Adults know too much about failure; they're more cynical and resigned and fearful.

Cycling is a sport of the open road and spectators are lining that road.

I figure the faster I pedal, the faster I can retire.

I can get up in the morning and look myself in the mirror and my family can look at me too and that's all that matters.

I become a happier man each time I suffer

How do you fight an invisible opponent like suspicion?

What is stronger, fear or hope?

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.

Nobody is going to feel sorry for me if I've lost a dollar or $100m.

I don't think history is stupid.History ultimately rectifies a lot of these things. If you had to ask me what I think happens in 50 years, I don't think it sits empty in 50 years. Maybe somebody else's name is there. But you can't leave it empty.

Motivation can't take you very far if you don't have the legs.

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.
Losing on the other hand, 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.

I've committed to surfing the rest of my life.

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.

The body is telling the mind to stop. The mind is telling the body to shut up.

I spent a long time trying to build up an organisation [the Lance Armstrong Foundation that changed its name to Livestrong after his confession] to help a lot of people.

Well, you better ride like you stole something 'cause you are about to win a stage in the Tour de Fance.

At the end of the day, if there was indeed some Body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life, not on whether I believed in a certain book, or whether I'd been baptized. If there was indeed a God at the end of my days, I hoped he didn't say, But you were never a Christian, so you're going the other way from heaven. If so, I was going to reply, You know what? You're right. Fine.

So if there is a purpose to the suffering that is cancer, I think it must be this: it's meant to improve us.

What will you do with your wild & precious self?

I'm not a patient person.

I asked myself what I believed. I had never prayed a lot. I hoped hard, wished hard, but I didn't pray. I had developed a certain distrust of organised religion growing up, but I felt I had the capacity to be a spiritual person, and to hold some fervent beliefs. Quite simply, I believed I had a responsibility to be a good person, and that meant fair, honest, hardworking and honorable. If I did that, if I was good to my family, true to my friends, if I gave back to my community or to some cause, if I wasn't a liar, a cheat, or a thief, then I believed that should be enough. At the end of the day, if there was indeed some Body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life, not on whether I believed in a certain book, or whether I'd been baptised.

We sped on, across the plains, toward Metz. I hung back, saving myself. It is called the Race of Truth. The early stages separate the strong riders from the weak. Now the weak would be eliminated altogether.

Me and running don't always see eye to eye. Some days it hurts more than others. But it doesn't mean I don't do it. I deal with it and I keep running because not everything that is good for you, always feels good for you.

Obviously, I come from one background, and the people that design fitness equipment have been doing it for years and years, and they know what works and doesn't work.

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.

Hard work, sacrifice and focus will never show up in tests.

We all want to be forgiven. There's a lot of really, really bad people who want to be forgiven but will never be forgiven, and I might be in that camp.

I know what happened to my foundation, from raising no money to raising $500m, serving three million people. Do we want to take that away? I don't think anybody says yes.

Portland, Oregon won't build a mile of road without a mile of bike path. You can commute there, even with that weather, all the time.

What makes a great endurance athlete is the ability to absorb potential embarrassment, and to suffer without complaint.

If life gives you lemons, drink the juice in order to mask the presence of performing-enhancing drugs.

I wrote an entire book about death, called 'It's not About the Bike', about confronting the possibility of it, and narrowly escaping it.

(...)

What I didn't and couldn't address at the time was the prospect of life. Once you figure out you're going to live, you have to decide how to, and that's not an uncomplicated matter.

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.

When I made the decision - when my team-mates made that decision, when the whole peloton made that decision - it was a bad decision and an imperfect time. But it happened.

For most of my life I had operated under a simple schematic of winning and losing, but cancer was teaching me a tolerance for ambiguities.

Made plenty of mistakes along the way - all of which I am truly sorry.

Your past forms you, whether you like it or not.

Nobody wants to hear how I think I've been mistreated, or how I think my punishment should be lifted, or tweaked, or reduced. Nobody wants to hear me say that, nobody cares what I think about this. I get it.

A bike ride. Yes, that's it! A simple bike ride. It's what I love to do and most days I can't believe they pay me to do it. A day is not the same without it ...