If you're good at it, you can win.

We only have two things that we share in this life; we are born and we die. And what we do in between those times, we've got to be happy. I don't let the outside world deter me.

Make yourself an example, achieve it, but don't hurt anyone on the way up. I don't think I did that.

I've always believed that the desire must come from within, not as a result of being driven by coaches or parents.

The Olympics remain the most compelling search for excellence that exists in sport, and maybe in life itself.

I don't linger on the fact that Dawn Fraser was a great swimmer 40 years ago. That was in the past. I did break 41 world records, but I don't live on that today.

It's a beautiful thing, diving into the cool crisp water and then just sort of being able to pull your body through the water and the water opening up for you.

I probably have a different mental approach to swimming than most people. I actually enjoy training.

I knew that the stronger that I was, the faster I was going to swim, and thats all I had in my mind at the time, was I wanted to be the best swimmer in the world.

I've worked hard all my life.

I can remember crawling through the window where he was in the hospital... He said, 'You have a gift... keep training for me.' I s'pose those were the last words he ever spoke to me.

It was impossible to feel alone in a room full of favorite books. I had the sense that they knew me personally, that they'd read me cover to cover as I'd read them.

To be a real leader, serve with love.

An easy life is rarely meaningful and a meaningful life rarely easy.

I think dissonance in music makes you think. It isn't, 'Oh, that's a pretty melody I can whistle.' You have to sit down and listen to tell it apart from other things.

I can myself conceive of nothing else than the experienced.

Sometimes a person's monstrosity seems superhuman.

All great experience has a guarded entrance and a windowless facade.

...the number one reason knitters knit is because they are so smart that they need knitting to make boring things interesting.

Well if somebody's giving me a script, I'll consider it. But it's not something I'm chasing.

In order to serve its purpose, a vision has to be a shared vision.