In the movie Chariots of Fire, young Harold Abrahams, a champion sprinter, had just suffered his first-ever defeat. After the race he sat alone, pouting in the bleachers. When his girlfriend tried to encourage him, he bellowed,
“If I can’t win, I won’t run!”
To which she wisely replied, “If you don’t run, you can’t win.”
Abrahams went on to win the 1924 Olympic Gold Medal in the hundred-meter run.