I started taking gymnastic classes when I was 3 years old.

As long as you've done your best, making mistakes doesn't matter. You and I are human; we will mess up. What counts is learning from your mistakes and getting back up when life has knocked you down.

Stay strong. Stand up. Have a voice.

I have a chaperone everywhere I go - my mom.

My approach to gymnastics in Beijing was heavily based on the amount of difficulty I could do.

I still can't believe I'm an Olympic athlete.

Gymnastics taught me everything - life lessons, responsibility and discipline and respect.

The body is an amazing machine... If you eat the right things your body will perform incredibly well!

To have any doubt in your body is the biggest weakness an athlete can have. There are times when I physically can't get myself to go for a skill because I'm thinking, 'My knee hurts really bad.'

Image isn't everything, It's what comes from your heart, and what you learn and what you say and how you act that means more than anything.

I don't call them sacrifices. I call them exchanges.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I reasoned as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

Kindness in your dealings with yourself and others will work wonders in your life. Much more so than rightness in your thinking.

No baggage - there was the secret of existence.

A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love.

Most people are more comfortable with old problems than with new solutions.

I started so old, so the touring world will always be a foreign land for me. I'll never be someone who's "been on the road."

I love sitting down and talking to people. CNBC gave me a chance to do it in a way that I liked. They gave me a chance to also develop the skills to learn from my mistakes.

I think one of the basic reasons men make good friends is that they can make up their minds quickly.

There's homophobia in every corner and pocket of this world but at the core you just love someone and want to make mixed tapes for them.

Every day is Judgement Day. Always has been. Always will be.