"When you promise something, you must fulfill it."
"You need three things to win: discipline, hard work and, before everything maybe, commitment. No one will make it without those three. Sport teaches you that."
"Athletes have to be confident and I am thinking like that."
"In the marathon a crazy athlete can just keep pushing from the beginning, at a championship you don't need a time just to win the race."
"The more you are getting older, you lose a little something. Of course there is another advantage, because of your long experience you can use it."
"What is important is to win."
"Why should I say I will retire in three or four years? You retire the very moment you utter those words."
"My school was six miles away from where I lived on the farm. I had to walk and run, there and back every day, through gorges and over rivers. If I was late, there was a very big stick waiting for me."
"I can't change everything by myself but I can be one of the people who are trying to change the situation."
"Schooling is so important."
"I find the business world hard."
"I feel a social responsibility. We need to open people's eyes. There is a lack of education in Ethiopia."
"First, do enough training. Then believe in yourself and say: I can do it. Tomorrow is my day. And then say: the person in front of me, he is just a human being as well; he has two legs, I have two legs, that is all. That is mentally how you prepare."
"Always, if you win mentally, you can win physically as well."
"Like some high official, you have to tell your brain: 'Do it. Come on. I have to do it.'"
"Some people start a sport just to reduce weight, or some say, 'My doctor ordered me to run and do exercise', and for others, they run for completely different benefits. But it is not like that with sport. We need to eat, we need to rest, but also we need to run."
"I always tell young athletes the same thing, 'Wherever you go, whatever you do, what must your top priority be? Running.'"
"In my life I do a lot of things but I never forget my training."
"Athletics is in my blood."
"I'm a runner first before anything else."
"I remember in particular my first victory when I achieved a very fast time in what were perfect conditions but since then the wind has always been a factor against me."
"You know for me when I promise something I want to deliver. If you don't, you have to disappear."
"You know the marathon in my country is just exceptional. It's like soccer in England. If England win the world cup and Ethiopia win the marathon - it's the same."
"I want to go down in history."
"You must do as your people do. If my people are poor, I must be poor. People ask me, 'Why don't you find a personal coach or a private car?' I can't. Then I won't be part of my people."
