After I came home from the 1936 Olympics with my four medals, it became increasingly apparent that everyone was going to slap me on the back, want to shake my hand or have me up to their suite. But no one was going to offer me a job.

It dawned on me with blinding brightness. I realized: I had jumped into another rare kind of stratosphere - one that only a handful of people in every generati…

It was bad enough to have toppled from the Olympic heights to make my living competing with animals. But the competition wasn't even fair. No man could beat a …

I decided I wasn't going to come down. I was going to fly. I was going to stay up in the air forever.

Anyone who isn't strong is left in a corner, no one asks for their autograph, they are abandoned in the cold shadows. Those who win, however, become icons.

Celebrity has always struck me as a dubious and transitory claim to achievement in our society. Status seekers and other so-called glitterati stand precariousl…

Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.