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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.

Life is for each man a solitary cell whose walls are mirrors.

One can only display complex information in the mind. Like seeing, movement or flow or alteration of view is more important than the static picture, no matter how lovely.

The vast majority of people that have gotten mad at me for a joke that I've made were people that were, A, never going to see me in the first place, or, B, were dragged to see me by somebody else.

I see the Internet as the next big deal - I wanted to get in on it early on so I wouldn't get behind it all.

Having done stand-up on television and in stand-up specials for like Comedy Central, you learn quickly that for that type of performance you're playing to the camera.

If a warrior lacked wisdom, courage alone would not keep him alive for long.

Don't ever tell anyone where you bought something. If you get a complement say, "Thank you. I got it in Europe.

The progression of roles you take strings together a portrait of an actor, but it's a completely random process.

My response was that more than half of Israelis are of Sephardic origin. Many of these Jews come from Arab lands and share the same physical skin color.