I came from such a simple origin, without any great privilege, and I would say I also wanted to make a mark. It wasn't until I was about 15 that I appeared in a race.
- Roger Bannister Quote

I couldn't disappoint people. I did not want to fail and exhaust myself, because I was the kind of runner who trained so little that I couldn't race again within another 10 days.
- Roger Bannister Quote

I enjoy singing, and the instruments which truly move me are the horn, the trumpet and the cello.
- Roger Bannister Quote

I lived on the top of one hill and the school was at the top of another hill. Nobody ever went to school by car-we didn't have any cars during the war. So that to and from school was itself a training.
- Roger Bannister Quote

I raced supremely well. I felt I was as well fitted to do it as I had ever been, and as perhaps I might ever be. I went climbing three weeks before, because I was feeling fed up with running.
- Roger Bannister Quote

I wanted to be a neurologist. That seemed to be the most difficult, most intriguing, and the most important aspect of medicine, which had links with psychology, aggression, behavior, and human affairs.
- Roger Bannister Quote

I was always a great bundle of energy. As a child, instead of walking, I would run. And so running, which is a pain to a lot of people, was always a pleasure to me because it was so easy.
- Roger Bannister Quote

I was playing rugby and the other games English school children do, and there was an event in which races were run, and I won these by a considerable margin.
- Roger Bannister Quote

I've always been very impatient. At age 10 I frankly found life boring, and I can remember age 9 having the awful thought, as it seems now looking back on it, A war! That should liven things up a bit!
- Roger Bannister Quote

If there was the opportunity to climb a mountain, or to go ballooning, or some adventurous activity, I would always be keen to do it. I loved the countryside.
- Roger Bannister Quote

It's a question of spreading the available energy, aerobic and anaerobic, evenly over four minutes. If you run one part too fast, you pay a price. If you run another part more slowly your overall time is slower.
- Roger Bannister Quote

Life was very simple. My parents had come from the North of England, which is a fairly rugged, bleak, hard-working part of England, and so there was not the expectation of luxury.
- Roger Bannister Quote

Mothers, unless they were very poor, didn't work. Both of my parents had to leave education. My mother had to work in a cotton mill until 18 or 19, when she took some training in domestic science.
- Roger Bannister Quote

My athleticism was really the core to social acceptance, because in those days the overwhelming number of students came from more of a public school background than I did.
- Roger Bannister Quote

My concentration was really on getting to university and becoming a doctor. My parents let me know that school marks were important. Achievement was something which came by hard work.
- Roger Bannister Quote

My family actually lived in the same village for about 400 years. They had great stability until the last century. People lived and intermarried in small villages.
- Roger Bannister Quote

Our house was bombed, and the roof fell in. We were sitting under the stairs of the basement, and we were quite safe, but it brought home the realization. In two nights 400 people were killed in small town.
- Roger Bannister Quote

The Athletic Association competed against the University. So there was an event. You cannot break world records unless it is an established event, and you have three timekeepers, and the whole thing is organized.
- Roger Bannister Quote

The reason sport is attractive to many of the general public is that it's filled with reversals. What you think may happen doesn't happen. A champion is beaten, an unknown becomes a champion.
- Roger Bannister Quote

When I was about to break a world record and become well known, my mother used to say that for her the important thing was for me to become a doctor-a career which had not been possible in her generation and in her society. Sport was something to be set aside.
- Roger Bannister Quote

You get very tired, and there was a certain amount of pain and you slow up. Your legs are so tired that you are in fact slowing. If you don't keep running, keep your blood circulating, the muscles stop pumping the blood back and you get dizzy.
- Roger Bannister Quote