Imagine, for example, birds. When they look out at the world, they have a sense that they are alive. If they are in pain, they can do something about it. If they have hunger or thirst, they can satisfy that. It's this basic feeling that there is life...
I still love hockey. It's just I'm at a different stage of my life and I think I'm just ready to grow in other ways outside of just being a hockey player.
I think to actually be an Olympian to me means that you've trained most of your life, or you've dedicated most of your life or a big chunk of your life into doing something that you believe that you can accomplish.
I've been fortunate to be short my entire life. There's only one position I've ever had to play, and that's point guard. So I've always had to be that leader. And that was my job: you know, to talk.
Believe in yourself, not only in swimming, but in life itself. You always have to have fun. You have to have an open mind. If you're not enjoying it, don't do it. Life's too short.
In Romania, of course, gymnastics is among the most popular sports, and my parents had a dream of escaping the Ceausescu regime and giving their child a better life. So they came to the United States and put me in gymnastics.
We need to educate our elite coaches more and have a better approach to teaching the athletes about how to be healthy rather than berate them, humiliate them, use tactics that could scar them for life.
I try to protect my loved ones, the people I share my life with, because they don't have a public life like me. I want to keep their lives private out of respect for them.
There's the typical books, Moby Dick and, I guess in my adult life I began to read biographies more than fiction. I started to want to relate to other people's lives, things that had really happened.
I heard a lot of those things. I heard that I was greedy; that I didn't care about winning; heard the questioning of my loyalty. And I'm thinking: 'Of course I want to win. I've been winning my entire life.'
If I had to think of what I would do different in my whole career, it's that I never would have picked up a beer, bottle of vodka. That definitely changed my life. That is an Achilles' heel for me.
Coach Wooden, when he speaks, you listen. I've taken a lot of things from him and his little blue book because to him, it's not just about basketball, it's about life as well.
I think my mother was baffled by me. We were polar opposites. She was shy and retiring. I was over-fond of the limelight. Many times in my life, I was conscious of embarrassing her with my carrying on.
It's important to just kind of get away from your sport until you miss it. It's about taking time to enjoy other aspects of life or learn new things. It helps rejuvenate.
I like to just think of myself as a normal person who just has a passion, has a goal and a dream and goes out and does it. And that's really how I've always lived my life.
I love working out. I mean, I've been doing it for about 20 years every day of my entire life. So I enjoy working out.
I'm at the stage of my career when it's not only about winning and developing players, it's about having fun. That's a void in your life right now, but it's something you're going to have here.
When I was 20, journalists would ask me what I would do when I retire from waterpolo. For me this is not just a five- or ten-year-period in my life. This is life itself.
We don't swim for the attention. We don't swim to be rock stars. There is something beautiful about being in an anonymous sport and being fairly anonymous. It enables you do something you love without any of the other effects.
I try to stay low-carb and high on lean protein. I'm lucky in that I love chicken and rice; it's one of my favorite meals. I steam some vegetables and top them with olive oil for some flavor.
I love short track. I competed in short track, I was a world champion in 1986 but at that point in time it wasn't in the Olympic Games so I moved into long track. Short track is a blast to skate and it's a blast to watch.
