Top 40 Mark Spitz Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “If you fail to prepare, you’re prepared to fail.”

— Mark Spitz

Featured in: Failure Quotes, Coaching Quotes, Preparation Quotes, Practice Quotes

2. “If you have a lane, you have a chance.”

— Mark Spitz

3. “We all love to win, but how many people love to train?”

— Mark Spitz

4. “Life is true to form, records are meant to be broken.”

— Mark Spitz

5. “Life is everchanging, if you cease to change, you cease to live.”

— Mark Spitz

6. “It has nothing to do with swimming. That happens to be my sport. I’m trying to see how far I can go.”

— Mark Spitz

7. “Swimming isn’t everything, winning is.”

— Mark Spitz

8. “I always wanted to be a dentist from the time I was in high school, and I was accepted to dental school in the spring of 1972. I was planning to go, but after the Olympics there were other opportunities.”

— Mark Spitz

9. “By making a comeback, I’m changing the attitude of people toward me. If I’d known that people would react so enthusiastically, I’d have done it years ago.”

— Mark Spitz

10. “In everyday life there is always manana. There is no urgency.”

— Mark Spitz

11. “And if you have high cholesterol, you would feel the same as if you had low cholesterol because there are no side effects, no symptoms of having high cholesterol.”

— Mark Spitz

12. “Past performance speaks a tremendous amount about one’s ability and likelihood for success.”

— Mark Spitz

13. “Yes, I believe that the art of winning is through intimidation, and not necessarily do you have to speak about it.”

— Mark Spitz

14. “There’s a difference between over-training and over-exercising. Over-training can be you’re trying to do something at high performance, but when you’re over-exercising it just means that you don’t have a life. And there are obviously people who go to that extreme.”

— Mark Spitz

15. “I’m trying to do the best I can. I’m not concerned with tomorrow, but with what goes on today.”

— Mark Spitz

16. “Well my thoughts on American swimming are that our prospects look favorable, but we may not have as strong a showing in the gold medal count as in previous Olympics. But I am not coaching.”

— Mark Spitz

17. “I just tried to keep my cool and continue with my race plan: to win.”

— Mark Spitz

18. “I wasn’t able to lower my cholesterol so they put me on a statin drug. It is called lipitor. I was able to lower my level in about 30 days from above 300 to below 200.”

— Mark Spitz

19. “I went through a lifestyle change when I dropped 40 pounds. Taking care of my diet was the first thing I did.”

— Mark Spitz

20. “As a kid, chess was the first thing I studied in a structured way that helped me gain the discipline to study medicine and become successful doctor.”

— Mark Spitz

21. “Everyone loves to be loved.”

— Mark Spitz

22. “I’m at the depot, and I’m not going anywhere. That’s better to deal with than having to deal with the unknown. And the unknown is they don’t want to fail. They don’t want to pay the price unless there’s a guarantee they’re going to get there.”

— Mark Spitz

23. “So in my mind I own a lot of house records still.”

— Mark Spitz

24. “In my day, at 12 years old, which was 38 years ago, we worked out in summer months for two and a half hours. Today someone in that age group might work out for four hours, two hours in the morning and two at night.”

— Mark Spitz

25. “I am not qualified to talk about the diet. Simply because I am not a dietician.”

— Mark Spitz

26. “If you want to be Mark Spitz then go for it. If you want to be Michael Phelps then you’ll have to work for it. Nobody should wake up to a lower expectation of themselves.”

— Mark Spitz

27. “The only side effect of too much training is that you get into better shape. There is nothing wrong with that.”

— Mark Spitz

28. “I am going to sit there and watch Michael Phelps break my record anonymously? That’s almost demeaning to me. It is not almost – it is.”

— Mark Spitz

29. “My biggest loss was the Olympics. I just can’t forget losing. I never will.”

— Mark Spitz

30. “If he wins seven golds and ties what I did, then it would be like I was the first man on the moon and he became the second. If he wins more than seven, then he becomes the first man on Mars. We’d both be unique.”

— Mark Spitz

31. “I walked away from the sport for 17 years, then started swimming again recently in a master’s program.”

— Mark Spitz

32. “What it is saying is that someone who was a world champion and who takes care of himself with a 17-year rest and applies the proper training techniques and perseverance could be successful.”

— Mark Spitz

33. “I got beat real hard and heavy in the Olympic Games in 1968 by a guy who swam an incredible race one time in his whole life, but he did it right at the right time. I’d like to be that guy now. Maybe that’s what I’m going to have to pull out of my hat to make the Olympic team.”

— Mark Spitz

34. “Because a known fact is better than an unknown fact.”

— Mark Spitz

35. “When I went to the Olympics, I had every intention of shaving the moustache off, but I realized I was getting so many comments about it – and everybody was talking about it – that I decided to keep it.”

— Mark Spitz

36. “Do any exercise you want as long as you’re willing to do it. You see gym equipment on TV advertisements all the time, but guess what? It’s only good if you actually use it.”

— Mark Spitz

37. “If you are relaxing and subconsciously thinking about your coming race, you are going to perform at just about 100 percent efficiency.”

— Mark Spitz

38. “The pool is terrible, but that doesn’t have much to do with my record swims. That’s all mental attitude.”

— Mark Spitz

39. “There are times I might coach one or two workouts a year when the regular coach gets caught in traffic.”

— Mark Spitz

40. “One of the most difficult things for people who have been successful in sports is adapting to the daily world where you can’t get an answer from someone until 5 o’clock tomorrow. There is always an excuse. Living 40 or 50 years like that doesn’t get too exciting after a while.”

— Mark Spitz

41. “I swam my brains out.”

— Mark Spitz