No thing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

The Hour of Death waits for no order. Death does not even come from the front. It is ever pressing on from behind. All men know of Death, but they do not expect it of a sudden, and it comes upon them unawares. So, though the dry flats extend far out, soon the tide comes and floods the beach.

Being a man who loves to be in the midst of sporting activities, I am suddenly in a vacuum after all the hurly-burly of the past 10 days. It will take a few days to return to normal life.

A sudden splendour seemed to kindle day
A breeze came breathing in a sweet perfume
Blown from eternal gardens, filled the room.

When I see how far we came from in 1984, when for the very first time, I competed in an event that was not allowed for women, which is the 400m hurdles, and all of a sudden now we see women running marathons like men, competing in boxing, in wrestling …we will witness a fantastic summer Olympic Games in Paris.

Suddenly it dawned on me that my triumphs had not destroyed the racial barriers once and for all, as I had—perhaps naively—hoped. Or if I did destroy them, they had been erected behind me again.

To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry.