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.

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.

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.

I have three dogs and a cockatoo.

The reality of a serious writer is a reality of many voices, some of them belonging to the writer, some of them belonging to the world of readers at large.

But life never lets you go, does it? You can't put down life the way you put down a book.

Education alone can conduct us to that enjoyment which is, at once, best in quality and infinite in quantity.

Attend with Diligence and strict Integrity to the Interest of your Correspondents and enter into no Engagements which you have not the almost certain Means of performing.

Is there such a thing as a man-made stroke? In other words, did someone do this to (Democratic Senator Tim Johnson)? ...I know what this [Republican] party is capable of.

The Internet is like closing time at a blue-collar bar in Boston. Everyone’s drunk and ugly and they’re going to pass out in a few minutes.

I was a very keen reader of science fiction, and during the time I was going to libraries, it was good, written by people who knew their science.

There's this about a farm: when the market's good there's money, and when it's bad there's food.

after a man passes 60 , his mischief is mainly in his head