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 you're asking your kids to exercise, then you better do it, too. Practice what you preach.

I always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability.

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

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.

First of all, I try to be a positive role model.

Start early and begin raising the bar throughout the day.

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.

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.

I still have nightmares about taking tests.

I thought everybody else was doing much better than I was.

I was growing up in the 50's and 60's. Back then they didn't even know what dyslexia was.

If you are a kid, reading is really important stuff.

If you're going to dedicate every second to winning the decathlon, what are you doing wasting your time in bed?

Nobody has milked one performance better than me - and I'm damned proud of it.

Our mission for younger people is to do our best to make exercise cool, hip - the thing to do.

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.

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.