What it is saying is that someone who was a world champion and who takes care of himself with a 17-year rest and applies the proper training techniques and perseverance could be successful.

I swam my brains out.

I'm trying to do the best I can. I'm not concerned with tomorrow, but with what goes on today.

Life is everchanging, if you cease to change, you cease to live.

If you're fail to prepare, you're prepared to fail.

We all love to win, but how many people love to train?

It has nothing to do with swimming. That happens to be my sport. I'm trying to see how far I can go

Swimming isn't everything - winning is.

If you are relaxing and subconsciously thinking about your coming race, you are going to perform at just about 100 percent efficiency.

If you want to be Mark Spitz then go for it. If you want to be Michael Phelps then you'll have to work for it. Nobody should wake up to a lower expectation of themselves.

And if you have high cholesterol, you would feel the same as if you had low cholesterol because there are no side effects, no symptoms of having high cholesterol.

Our task is not to find love but to remove all blocks that we have built against it.

I'm healthy as an ox. And you?" "To compare myself with a bovine would be both ridiculous and insulting, but I'm fit as ever, if that is what you are asking.

A team goal requires a team effort.

I still don't know if I'm good enough or if it's a calling or a vocation or something, but the talent part is out. My desire to do it is undoubted. I just love doing this.

I started writing nonfiction because nonfiction is well-suited to subjects that, if you wrote them as fiction, people would say, "I don't believe this. This is a little outlandish".

It's not a certain society that seems ridiculous to me, it's mankind.

I'm an angel not a frickin' saint.

August. We were arguing. You want love to be like this every day don't you? 92 degrees even in the shade.

You've got to keep things flying.

The capacity for fear and for happiness are the same, the unrestricted openness to experience amounting to self-abandonment in which the vanquished rediscovers himself.