"I don't want to be put on a pedestal. I just want to be reasonably successful and live a normal life with all the conveniences to make it so."

"No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you."

"In sports, you simply aren't considered a real champion until you have defended your title successfully. Winning it once can be a fluke; winning it twice proves you are the best."

"I always wanted to be somebody. If I made it, it's half because I was game enough to take a lot of punishment along the way and half because there were a lot of people who cared enough to help me."

"In the field of sports you are more or less accepted for what you do rather than what you are."

"Shaking hands with the Queen of England was a long way from being forced to sit in the colored section of the bus going into downtown Wilmington, North Carolina."

"Most of us who aspire to be tops in our fields don't really consider the amount of work required to stay tops."

"Being champion is all well and good, but you can't eat a crown."