Lance Armstrong Quotes about Cancer

We have two options, medically and emotionally: give up or fight like hell.

The day it all changed. The day I stated never to take anything for granted. The day I learned to take charge of my life. It was the day I was diagnosed with cancer.

So if there is a purpose to the suffering that is cancer, I think it must be this: it's meant to improve us.

Cancer doesn’t care if you’re Republican or Democrat.

The question was, which would the chemo kill first: the cancer or me?

Everything in my life is in perspective. OK, perspective ebbs and flows. I've had bad days, but they weren't in the last years. A bad day is 2 October 1996: 'We've got bad news for you, you've got advanced testicular cancer and you've got a coin's toss chance of survival.' That's a bad day.

I thought I knew what fear was, until I heard the words 'You have cancer'.

I'm cycling to take cancer message worldwide.

The truth is, if you asked me to choose between winning the Tour de France and cancer, I would choose cancer. Odd as it sounds, I would rather have the title of cancer survivor than winner of the Tour, because of what it has done for me as a human being, a man, a husband, a son, and a father.

You know, once I was thinking of quitting when I was diagnosed with brain, lung and testicular cancer all at the same time. But with the love and support of my friends and family, I got back on the bike and won the Tour de France five times in a row. But I'm sure you have a good reason to quit.

For most of my life I had operated under a simple schematic of winning and losing, but cancer was teaching me a tolerance for ambiguities.

People refer to 'the good ol' days', but I don't know what they're talking about. As someone who's battled cancer, if I lived more than 20 years ago, I'd be a dead man.

Regardless of one victory, two victories, four victories, there's never been a victory by a cancer survivor. That's a fact that hopefully I'll be remembered for.

It gave me a chance to re-evaluate my life and my career. Cancer certainly gives things a new perspective. I would not have won the Tour de France if I had not had cancer. It gave me new strength and focus.

Cancer taught me a plan for more purposeful living, and that in turn taught me how to train and to win more purposefully. It taught me that pain has a reason, and that sometimes the experience of losing things-whether health or a car or an old sense of self-has its own value in the scheme of life. Pain and loss are great enhancers.

It's a fact that children with cancer have higher cure rates than adults with cancer, and I wonder if the reason is their natural, unthinking bravery... Adults know too much about failure; they're more cynical and resigned and fearful.

I want to finish by saying that I intend to be an avid spokesperson for testicular cancer once I have beaten the disease. I want this to be a positive experience and I want to take this opportunity to help others who might someday suffer from the same circumstance I face today.

The ban doesn't have anything to do with Livestrong or my ability to work in [the cancer] community. Perhaps it speeds it up. I don't know the examples in Great Britain of athletes who have fallen. I know the examples in the United States - the Tiger Woods, the Michael Vicks, even the Bill Clintons - people who are still out there able to work.

What matters is ultimately what collectively those people on the street - whether that's the cycling community, the cancer community - it matters what they think.

Before my diagnosis [cancer] I was a competitor but not a fierce competitor. When I was diagnosed, that turned me into a fighter.