Life is true to form; records are meant to be broken.

The pool is terrible, but that doesn't have much to do with my record swims. That's all mental attitude.

My biggest loss was the Olympics. I just can't forget losing. I never will.

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.

Well my thoughts on American swimming are that our prospects look favorable, but we may not have as strong a showing in the gold medal count as in previous Olympics. But I am not coaching.

I'm at the depot, and I'm not going anywhere. That's better to deal with than having to deal with the unknown. And the unknown is they don't want to fail. They don't want to pay the price unless there's a guarantee they're going to get there.

In everyday life there is always manana. There is no urgency.

Past performance speaks a tremendous amount about one's ability and likelihood for success.

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

If he wins seven golds and ties what I did, then it would be like I was the first man on the moon and he became the second. If he wins more than seven, then he becomes the first man on Mars. We'd both be unique.

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

I am not qualified to talk about the diet. Simply because I am not a dietician.

I swam my brains out.

So in my mind I own a lot of house records still.

I just tried to keep my cool and continue with my race plan: to win.

I walked away from the sport for 17 years, then started swimming again recently in a master's program.

By making a comeback, I'm changing the attitude of people toward me. If I'd known that people would react so enthusiastically, I'd have done it years ago.

In my day, at 12 years old, which was 38 years ago, we worked out in summer months for two and a half hours. Today someone in that age group might work out for four hours, two hours in the morning and two at night.

Life is true to form; records are meant to be broken.

One of the most difficult things for people who have been successful in sports is adapting to the daily world where you can't get an answer from someone until 5 o'clock tomorrow. There is always an excuse. Living 40 or 50 years like that doesn't get too exciting after a while.

I wasn't able to lower my cholesterol so they put me on a statin drug. It is called lipitor. I was able to lower my level in about 30 days from above 300 to below 200.

Yes, I believe that the art of winning is through intimidation, and not necessarily do you have to speak about it.

Swimming isn't everything, winning is.

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.

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

I always wanted to be a dentist from the time I was in high school, and I was accepted to dental school in the spring of 1972. I was planning to go, but after the Olympics there were other opportunities.

Everyone loves to be loved.

When I went to the Olympics, I had every intention of shaving the mustache off, but I realized I was getting so many comments about it - and everybody was talking about it - that I decided to keep it.

I got beat real hard and heavy in the Olympic Games in 1968 by a guy who swam an incredible race one time in his whole life, but he did it right at the right time. I'd like to be that guy now. Maybe that's what I'm going to have to pull out of my hat to make the Olympic team.

The only side effect of too much training is that you get into better shape. There is nothing wrong with that.

Because a known fact is better than an unknown fact.

There are times I might coach one or two workouts a year when the regular coach gets caught in traffic.

The memories of the Munich games for me are of triumph and tragedy.

All things being equal, if we could simulate the same scenario, he has a lot more difficult task. He's elected to swim six individual events, as opposed to what I elected to do, which was four.

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

Roosevelt's magic lay in one facet of his personality: He knew how to take the risk. No other man in public life I knew could so readily take the challenge of the new.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life.

If it came to saving the life of one priest or sacrificing the life of an entire congregation, the church would save the life of the priest. Which is backwards, of course.

Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert.

All literary men are Red Sox fans - to be a Yankee fan in a literate society is to endanger your life.

At the end, the realization is that she had to get to a place in her life where she could drop her guard and make peace with the fact that whether she had a small amount of time, that she had to kind of live it completely through, instead of living by the rules.

You have choices to make about what you do with the rest of your life.

From the standpoint of observation, then, we must regard it as a highly probable hypothesis that the beginnings of the mental life date from as far back as the beginnings of life at large.

I want to have babies one day but not right now. When I do it I want to do it really well. I want it to be my best project in life.

Any judge who allows an adulterer with a live-in girlfriend to terminate the life of his wife should be impeached.

I can assure you, public service is a stimulating, proud and lively enterprise. It is not just a way of life, it is a way to live fully.

The work which is manipulated looks a little boring to me. I think life is pretty strange anyway. It is wooo, wooo, wooo!

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.