Steve Prefontaine Quotes

“To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”

“Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it.”

“A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more.”

“It's not who's the best; it's who can take the most pain.”

“I'm going to work so that it's a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it.”

“No one will ever win a 5,000-metre by running an easy two miles. Not against me.”

“If I lose forcing the pace all the way, well, at least I can live with myself. But if it's a slow pace, and I get beaten by a kicker who leeches off the front, then I'll always wonder, "What if...?"

“If anybody wants to beat me, let them run a world record.”

“What I want is to be number one.”

“I decided that if I was going to continue in track, that I didn't want to lose, that I wasn't going to lose.”

“Something inside of me just said, "Hey, wait a minute, I want to beat him," and I just took off.”

“Every race I lose I learn from and get tougher.”

“Nobody likes tainted victories.”

“It doesn't feel that good when you're ahead the whole way.”

“I have a positive mental attitude, and I think I'm divine, but I also think it takes a heck of a lot of blood, sweat and tears.”

“Over the years, I've given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started. It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement.”

“What I like most about track is the feeling I get inside after a good run.”

“Every once in a while I think, "What am I doing out here running, busting myself up? Life could be so much easier. The other guys are out having fun, doing other things, why not me?"

“My philosophy is that I'm an artist. I perform an art not with a paint brush or a camera. I perform with bodily movement. Instead of exhibiting my art in a museum or a book or on canvas, I exhibit my art in front of the multitudes.”

“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.”

“A race is a work of art that people can look at and be affected in as many ways they're capable of understanding.”

“I don't just go out there and run. I like to give people watching something exciting.”

“When people go to a track meet, they're looking for something, a world record, something that hasn't been done before. You get all this magnetic energy. It makes me want to compete even more. It makes it all worthwhile, all the hours of hard work.”

“This is my last year at Oregon, and it means a lot to me. The people have been great to me, so if I have to run three races to win the Pac-8 title, I'll do it. I'll probably be tired, but the people shouting will carry me across the finish line.”

“Kids made fun of me because I was a slow learner, because I was hyperactive, because of a lot of things. Running gave me confidence.”