Since my mother is an extremely devoted Christian Orthodox woman, she prayed a great deal and taught me how to pray.

I learned to take those experiences that were difficult in my life and in the adversity that I had overcome to use it for a positive change.

Training with Bela and Marta Karolyi took the joy out of the Olympics for me. I look back and feel there was a lot of verbal and physical abuse. For years, I felt it was my problem.

I had this sister that was born who was given up for adoption, and I never knew it.

Autographs and pictures do get a little old, but I don't mind if the people want it.

As a competitive gymnast, my life has always been filled with challenges that would ultimately define my future. From day one, I was taught to be prepared at all costs.

My parents enrolled me in a gymnastics class when I was three years old, and I just was drawn to gymnastics. I loved it. It was my playground, and I could run around and be free there.

In my very first interview, at nine years old, I said I wanted to be an Olympic gold medalist. That was the first time I said it out loud in front of somebody other than my parents.

I was 26 years old when I found out that I had a sister who I never knew existed.

Seek only to preserve life -- your own and those of others. Life alone is sacred.

Some read to learn, some to laugh, and some to live.

If the church is acceptable to this present ageand is not suffering reproach, then it is not the true church that our Lord founded.

I thought boxes were the best toy. When my parents got a new car, I ran to my mother and said, 'Did it come in a box?'

It is easier to tone down a wild idea than to think up a new one.

Most of the time I've worked with directors who write their own scripts. The story is more important to me than the part. The project of the film has always been more important to me.

Just as a man working with his tools should know its limitations, a man working with his cognitive apparatus must know its limitations.

With spiritual growth comes new creative potential, leading to the realization that you are pure potential, able to fill any creative impulse.

I guess I was raised in a household with a lot of reverence for the physical sanctity of books. You didn't destroy books.

These are roots of all evil, hatred and greed, for money, for the construction and for the sale of weapons. This should make us all think, who is behind it all?