 I didn't only have a perceptual problem, I was also so nervous and so upset. The process just didn't work. I lost enthusiasm for school and I flunked second grade. The teachers said I was lazy. |
| It caused more problems as a young kid, because the simple process of perceiving words on a piece of paper was hard for me. Many people think dyslexic people see things backwards. They don't see things backwards. |
| If you are dyslexic, your eyes work fine, your brain works fine, but there is a little short circuit in the wire that goes between the eye and the brain. Reading is not a fluid process. |
| If you're going to dedicate every second to winning the decathlon, what are you doing wasting your time in bed? |
| Start early and begin raising the bar throughout the day. |
| First of all, I try to be a positive role model. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| I thought everybody else was doing much better than I was. |
| Our mission for younger people is to do our best to make exercise cool, hip - the thing to do. |
| 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. |
| We put so much pressure on kids to excel in school at such a young age. |
| 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. |
| I always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability. |
| I still have nightmares about taking tests. |
| The biggest problem with dyslexic kids is not the perceptual problem, it is their perception of themselves. That was my biggest problem. |
| When the time comes for your brain to process the information, the second word comes up faster than the first one. So when it's in your head, all of a sudden, it comes out backwards and you think of the word backwards. |
| If you're asking your kids to exercise, then you better do it, too. Practice what you preach. |
| Nobody has milked one performance better than me - and I'm damned proud of it. |
| I was growing up in the 50's and 60's. Back then they didn't even know what dyslexia was. |
