Lance Armstrong Quotations

Some quotes from Lance Armstrong - Six time winner of the Tour De France and Cancer survivor:

On training for the TdF: 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, not even my teammates...

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, you have to fight.

"I believed in belief, for its own shining sake. To believe in the face of utter hopelessness, every article of evidence to the contrary, to ignore apparent catastrophe-what other choice was there? We do it every day, I realized. We are so much stronger than we imagine, and belief is one of the most valiant and long-lived human characteristics. To believe, when all along we humans know that nothing can cure the briefness of this life, that there is no remedy for our basic mortality, that is a form of bravery." "To continue believing in yourself, believing in the doctors, believing in the treatment, believing in whatever I chose to believe in, that was the most important thing, I decided. It had to be." "Without belief, we would be left with nothing but an overwhelming doom, every single day. And it will beat you. I didn't fully see, until the cancer, how we fight every day against the creeping negatives of the world, how we struggle daily against the slow lapping of cynicism. Dispiritedness and disappointment, these are the real perils of life, not some sudden illness or cataclysmic millennium doomsday. I knew now why people fear cancer: because it is a slow and inevitable death, it is the very definition of cynicism and loss of spirit... So, I believed."

When I was sick, I didn't want to die. When I race I don't want to lose. Dying and losing, it's the same thing.

But the fact is that I wouldn't have won even a single Tour de France without the lesson of illness. What it teaches is this: Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever. From "Every Second Counts"

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

I had learned what it means to ride in the Tour de France. It's not about the bike. It's a metaphor for life, not only the longest race in the world but also the most exalting and heartbreaking and potentially tragic. It poses every conceivable element to the rider and more. During our lives we're faced with so many elements as well, we experience so many setbacks, and fight such a hand-to-hand battle with failure, head down in the rain, just trying to stay upright and have a little hope. The Tour isn't just a bike race, it tests you mentally, physically, and even morally.

I think it's important to be understood, to be honest, to be hard working, and ultimately the press, the public, the organizers... they'll decide. But I can only be myself. I can't be the guy that goes out and puts on a show... I can only be myself.

GP Midi Libre 2002 - It's always a good thing to win a race before the Tour de France. I entered the Grand Prix Midi Libre to win it and I'm glad I took the leader's jersey before the last stage which should also be a tough one. (And he did win it... by 9 seconds.) "La vie est courte, c'est mieux de gagner". Life is short: it is better to win.

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

I don't need to ride for the money, I do it because I love it and I would happily ride for nothing. I will be riding a bike in 10 years time because I feel better when I do exercise and I want to enjoy true good health.

Cancer is my secret because none of my rivals has been that close to death and it makes you look at the world in a different light and that is a huge advantage.

I hate losing at anything, whether it be cards, golf or whatever.

At the end of the day, it's me versus the other guys. That's what keeps me going...

It taught me that pain has a reason, and that sometimes the experience of losing things--whether health or a car or an old sense of self--has its own value in the scheme of life. Pain and loss are great enhancers.

Once someone asked me what pleasure I got out of riding my bike for so long. "Pleasure?" I asked. "I don't understand the question. I didn't do it for pleasure. I did it for pain".

I take nothing for granted. I now have only good days or great days.

Giving up was never an option.

This is my body. And I can do whatever I want to it. I can push it. Study it. Tweak it. Listen to it. 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?

On the Tour de France: There is no reason to attempt such a feat of idiocy, other than the fact that some people, that is to say some people like me, have a need to search the depths of their stamina for self-definition. (I'm the guy who can take it.) It's a contest in purposeless suffering. But for reasons of my own, I think it may be the most gallant athletic endeavor in the world. To me, of course, it's about living.

To be afraid is a priceless education.

If you ever get a second chance in life for something, you've got to go all the way.