Actually, performing is a lot like golf. You are alone, so vulnerable.

Acting allows me the freedom to let go, to be in the moment, to be spontaneous. I no longer have the fear of losing, of failure.

In high school I never went to the prom because I was too consumed with gymnastics. Also, with my hair in pigtails and looking about 10, I wasn't exactly date material.

I would climb on roofs and jump off using my parents' bed sheet, hoping it would open like a parachute. I was always getting hurt, breaking a leg, you know, bruising, cracking my head open.

Seeing the show is like a visit to the fountain of youth for parents and the children.

There's so much denial in gymnastics. It's a beautiful sport but the other part is numbing. You become machinelike. They'll refute this, but I've been around it. I know.

It's really hard to separate fantasy from reality.

Nowadays a gold medal is a $1 million contract. Our athletes are our heroes.

It's that athlete's obsessiveness - the need to prove yourself and work harder than anybody else. I think it's what helped me do well in the theater.

I will jump into most any role.

I grew up in a sport that didn't allow you to grow up. There was always the threat of younger competition. So you had to maintain the image of youth.

Words are life. Positive words create positive life.

It is an EVIL thing to be an expert in the weaknesses of our brothers and sisters. We need to be experts in the strengths of our brothers and sisters.

What I like in a good author is not what he says but what he whispers.

I am a huge admirer of Elizabeth I, and this intriguing biography gives a wonderful picture of the era.

I don't want our culture diluted. We need to close the borders now and let everyone assimilate to a Western, white, English-speaking way of life.

My parents were very poor, but we never felt any sense of need or want. It was a very close, loving, tightly-knit family growing up, and I never felt any sense of deprivation or anything like that.

How utterly are one's best thoughts invaded by this going out in society.

I read all the time... I read a lot of history books.

We're finding [texting] 11 times more powerful than email [for communicating with kids].