First and foremost I am an American athlete and I am proud to live in a country that encourages diversity, openness and tolerance.

If I had never won a single medal, I'd still be skating in a rink somewhere. There wouldn't be an audience or camera flashes or autograph seekers, but I'd still be skating.

A really important part of competition is coming back, trying to do it better the second time than you did the first.

When a skater steps on the ice to compete, the nerves, the tension, and sheer suspense of that moment make for great drama.

Plus the public's attention span is so short right now, if a skater doesn't strike while the iron is hot... well it's not like people will forget you, but they just won't care anymore.

That's what amateur skating is about, technical expertise, and it should always stay that way.

I have to consider my greatest accomplishments winning the Olympics because everything that Ive done after that is really because of the Olympics.

The Olympics are great for notoriety right off the bat, but your body of work is what people remember you for.

So the programs all start to all look the same. I watched one free skating competition, and I thought I was watching a short program. Everyone was doing exactly the same elements.

As an athlete, I hope we can remain focused on the Olympic spirit which celebrates achievement in sport by peoples of all nations.

Yeah, I am a little bit, and I think it is a natural progression of the sport, of going upwards in technical ability and everything like that.

reality isn't the way you wish things to be, nor the way they appear to be, but the way they actually are.

Cutting a tree down doesn't kill it

She felt the familiar calmness of an emergency, but she understood the falseness of that feeling, now that it was her life at stake.

Happiness and suffering do not depend on being poor or rich, they depend on having the right or wrong understanding in our mind.

It is socialism. It moves the country in a direction which is not good for anyone, whether they be young or old. It charts a course from which there will be no turning back.

... life itself is brief, and that is what charges the day with such ridiculous beauty.

For too long, opponents of the PATRIOT Act have transformed this law into a grossly distorted caricature that bears no relation to the legislation itself.

I avoid banks and I've never been in any sort of corporate environment at all.

Our titles would not have been possible without the unselfishness displayed by all our teams, the team wins, not the individuals

Just because we can't sell shares in nature doesn't mean it has no value.