Shawn Johnson Quotes

As long as you've done your best, making mistakes doesn't matter. You and I are human; we will mess up. What counts is learning from your mistakes and getting back up when life has knocked you down.

Stay strong. Stand up. Have a voice.

I have a chaperone everywhere I go - my mom.

My approach to gymnastics in Beijing was heavily based on the amount of difficulty I could do.

I still can't believe I'm an Olympic athlete.

Gymnastics taught me everything - life lessons, responsibility and discipline and respect.

The body is an amazing machine... If you eat the right things your body will perform incredibly well!

To have any doubt in your body is the biggest weakness an athlete can have. There are times when I physically can't get myself to go for a skill because I'm thinking, 'My knee hurts really bad.'

Image isn't everything, It's what comes from your heart, and what you learn and what you say and how you act that means more than anything.

I don't call them sacrifices. I call them exchanges.

I had surgery to repair the ACL in February 2010 and was back in the gym by June, but rushed things too quickly and ended up re-tearing my MCL in September.

I pay attention to my diet to be a healthier gymnast, but I'm not obsessive over it.

Everything for me started with my love of the sport. In society we're losing the fun with kids and pushing success on them too hard. Success comes from fun.

I started from zero and went back to the basics in gymnastics.

Everything is about your movements and precision and timing, which is what gymnastics is about.

To have any doubt in your body is the biggest weakness an athlete can have.

I love lean meats like chicken, turkey. I'm obsessed with sushi and fish in general. I eat a lot of veggies and hummus.

Don't force anything. Find what you love and stick with it.

I was at the Olympic Games winning medals and I still doubted my image. I doubted what I looked like. That's sad.

Well-I don't know if anyone would really ask me to prom.

Gymnastics is not only a good thing to live by, but it is important to understand how it does help you in life.

Injury taught me I need to learn how to face challenges.

It might have been easier to retire, to say my knee couldn't handle it and let that be that. At the same time, the prospect of not being able to compete in gymnastics anymore was heartbreaking.

Gymnastics has made me strong. I feel like it broke me down to my lowest point, but at the same time, it has given me the greatest strength anyone could ask for.

To finish off this whole Olympics by finally getting the gold medal, it's the best feeling in the world.

If you lose the nerves, you lose the sport.

I told myself after 2008 that I was done for good. But they say you can't keep a gymnast away from her sport.

I'm trying to stay as calm as possible and focus one day at a time, but when reality sets in, I feel everything: anxiety, excitement, nerves, pressure and joy.

My other life keeps me calm and grounded and normal.

I think about my goals. There were a lot of times in gymnastics when I really didn't want to go in and train, but you can't make it to the Olympics if you don't train!

Of course, when you're training your whole life to get to the Olympics, you train for gold.

I'm doing four hours of gymnastics training a day, six days a week and then an extra two to three hours in a fitness center as well.

A comeback in gymnastics is almost impossible in itself.

After 13 years of hard landings in gymnastics, one ski run had delivered the biggest injury of my career.

I fell in love with gymnastics. I love what I do now. I work with people that I love to be around. Success comes from that.

Gymnastics is so complex.

People only see gymnastics on TV and in the Olympics at such an extreme. So it can be intimidating.

I have a healthy lifestyle, but there's nothing you can really do to prevent from rolling an ankle or something like that.

I had a constant fear, a constant little doubt in my mind: 'OK, I'm getting ready to do my standing back full on beam and I might re-tear my ACL.'

People put too much emphasis on looks.

My coach, Liang Chow, had one rule while I was training for the 2008 Olympics: no skiing. I could do anything I wanted outside the gym, he said, except ski.

I have a lot of expectations and a lot of goals I want to fulfill, but the biggest dream is still to make the Olympic team for London.

I know how much more I need to do to be where I want.

Something my mom taught me when I was little is that everything happens for a reason.

There's always a chance. Anything can happen.

Everybody sacrifices something in an attempt to reach what they think society wants.

I always feel like I'm the young one, I'm the small one.

It's been strange and weird watching the other girls at the U.S. Olympic trials just because I was training to be out there myself.

I fell in love with running, and I finally have time to do it now.

I get less and less sleep these days, so when I have any down time all I want to do is sleep!