"It's one of the hardest things in life - choosing your own name."

"I am from the Kardashian group. We can take anything."

"We put so much pressure on kids to excel in school at such a young age."

"Waving the flag at the 1976 Olympics wasn't my idea. It was too much apple pie and ice cream. Not that I don't love my country, but I felt it was my victory up there, I put all the time into it."

"I spent twelve years training for a career that was over in a week. Joe Namath spent one week training for a career that lasted twelve years."

"My greatest gift in life was being dyslexic. It made me special. It made me different. If I had not been dyslexic, I wouldn't have needed sports."

"If I were to compare the Olympic decathlon to fatherhood, I would say fatherhood is a lot tougher."

"It hurts every day when you practice hard, but when this decathlon is over, I got the rest of my life to recuperate. Who cares how bad it hurts?"

"I have struggled with identity all my life. It's not like something that just happened last week."

"I got into sports because that was a way to prove your masculinity. I was good at it."

"The biggest problem with dyslexic kids is not the perceptual problem, it is their perception of themselves. That was my biggest problem."

"You don't go out and change your gender for a "television "show, O.K.? It ain't happening. I don't care who you are."

"Some people look gender non-conforming because they want to look that way - they don't want to conform to society's expectations."

"Being a celebrity is a business."

"The hardest part about being a woman is figuring out what to wear."

"I have found that women have so much unleashed power that they don't really utilize because they don't have confidence in themselves about who they are and what they can do."

"The only thing I did is, I wore the same pair of socks in every decathlon I was ever in."

"Start early and begin raising the bar throughout the day."

"There's nothing more, nothing better in life to wake up in the morning, look at yourself in the mirror, and feel comfortable with yourself and who you are."

"Sexuality is who you are personally attracted to... But gender identity is who you are in your soul."

"I'm just going to go live life. I'm going to go enjoy life. I have nothing left to hide. I am kind of a free person, a free soul."

"Life wasn't easy growing up; it was frustrating. If I had been a better reader, then that would have come easily, sports would have come easily, everything would have come easily, and I never would have realized that the way you get ahead in life is hard work."

"I learned that the only way you are going to get anywhere in life is to work hard at it. Whether you're a musician, a writer, an athlete or a businessman, there is no getting around it. If you do, you'll win - if you don't, you won't."

"If I wasn't dyslexic, I probably wouldn't have won the Games. If I had been a better reader, then that would have come easily, sports would have come easily... and I never would have realized that the way you get ahead in life is hard work."

"Gamble, cheat, lie, and steal. Let me explain: Gamble for your best shot in life - dare to take risks. Cheat those who would have you be less than you are. Lie in the arms of those you love. And finally, steal every moment of happiness."

"I had a lot of conversations with my family, my close friends, with my pastor, with God, and kind of came to a revelation that maybe I should be honest with myself about who I am and let that person - this woman who has lived inside me for my entire life - finally have an opportunity to live."

"Decathletes have to train for every event: sprints one day, field events the next. You pump up to make yourself strong enough to throw? Try pole vaulting at 250 pounds. There are 32 guys in most decathlons, and they're in 32 little track meets."

"So many people go through life, and they never deal with their own issues, no matter what the issues are - ours happen to be gender identity. But, how many people go through life and just waste an entire life 'cause they'd never deal with themselves to be who they are."

"In the fifth grade I discovered something I could do better than the other kids. One day, the teacher set up a bunch of chairs, and she had everyone run to the chairs and back while she timed us. I had the fastest time in the whole school!"

"The truth is everybody does it from time to time. People dial telephone numbers and they get a wrong number only to find that they've read the last two digits backwards. Everybody does it, but dyslexics have this tendency to a higher degree."

"If I had not been dyslexic, I wouldn't have needed sports. I would have been like every other kid. Instead, I found my one thing, and I was never going to let go of it. That little dyslexic kid is always in the back of your head."

"What I went through in 1976, it's the same today: It's about all the pressure that you feel, the anxiety, the family, and everything that surrounds the Games, and then getting there knowing this is your big chance, and you're able to come through. It's such a satisfying thing."

"We have a rich tradition here in the United States of great decathletes, which is amazing 'cause we have absolutely no program to develop these guys. Zero. There's nothing. They do it on their own, just like I did back in '76."

"My wife Kris and I enjoy keeping an active lifestyle, so it's hard to imagine what it would be like if breathing problems kept me from participating in the activities I love to do. But that's exactly what happens to many people who develop COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease."

"Someday we'll look back on this and it will all seem funny."

"When it comes to luck, you make your own."

"I have spent my life judging the distance between American reality and the American dream."

"Getting an audience is hard. Sustaining an audience is hard. It demands a consistency of thought, of purpose, and of action over a long period of time."

"I looked at myself, and I just said, 'Well, you know, I can sing, but I'm not the greatest singer in the world. I can play guitar very well, but I'm not the greatest guitar player in the world.' So I said, 'Well, if I'm going to project an individuality, it's going to have to be in my writing.'"

"The past is never the past. It is always present. And you better reckon with it in your life and in your daily experience, or it will get you. It will get you really bad."

"We all have stories we're living and telling ourselves."

"Adult life is dealing with an enormous amount of questions that don't have answers. So I let the mystery settle into my music. I don't deny anything, I don't advocate anything, I just live with it."

"You can't have a United States if you are telling some folks that they can't get on the train. There is a cracking point where a society collapses."

"The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with."

"You make your music, then you try to find whatever audience is out there for it."

"If you're good, you're always looking over your shoulder."

"I was the only person I'd ever met who had a record contract. None of the E Street Band, as far as I know, had been on an airplane until Columbia sent us to Los Angeles."

"Talk about a dream, try to make it real."

"I'm always in search of something, in search of losing myself to the music."

"Anyone who's grown up or lived on the Jersey Shore knows the place is unique."