Pre - Quotes
"To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the Gift"
I would rather be ashes than dust
I would rather that spark burn out in a brilliant blaze
Than it should be stilled by a dry rot.
I would rather be a super meteor
Every atom of me in a magnificent glow
Than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The proper function of mankind is to live,
Not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them
I shall use my time.
---Jack London
"Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run. I like to make people stop and say, 'I've never seen anyone run like that before.' It's more than just a race, it's a style. It's doing something better than anyone else. It's being creative."
"There are big odds against me. No one under twenty five has ever won the Olympic five. But if everything goes right, whoever wins will know he has been in one helluva race."
"When you are a young and up-and-coming runner in the U.S. and making some breakthroughs in the distances, Pre is still the man you are compared to. It's all based on Pre."
---Bob Kennedy
"I could lose and live with the knowledge that I had given 120 percent, given it all, if I'd been beaten by a guy who came up with 130 percent, but to lose because I'd let it go to the last lap...I'd always wonder whether I might have broken away."
"Pre inspired a whole generation of American distance runners to excel. He made running cool. He created the whole idea of training really hard and going for it. Runners setting goals for themselves, wanting to go all out and be really tough. That was his example."
---Alberto Salazar
"What I like most about track is the feeling I get inside after a good run."
"A lot of people run a race to see who is the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts."
"He never let them down, taking on any rival in any circumstance, sometimes seeming to be on the brink of disaster and then, just when you thought it was over, dredging and grasping a final something from a place deeper than the pain, deeper than the self-doubt, deeper than despair."
---Don Kardong
"How does a kid from Coos Bay with one leg longer than the other win races. All my life people have been telling me, 'You're too small Pre. You're not fast enough Pre. Give up your foolish dream Steve.' But they forgot something. I HAVE TO WIN."
---Without Limits
all quotes by Steve Prefontaine unless otherwise noted