My parents never pressured me to skate. They always said I could quit if I wanted to. They only expected me to skate when they had already paid for the expensive lessons. But, otherwise they said I could do what I wanted to do.

There is no age, height, or weight requirement to skate. It is good exercise no matter what your age is. If you want to be competitive, most start young. But, I practice with many adult competitors.

And I love what I do and I love skating.

It was always fun to skate with Paul Wylie and Paul Martini.

Sometimes it was difficult to make friends and be social in school because I was always practicing while other kids were getting together and doing things. But it just made me closer to my family, and I realized that they would always be there no matter what.

My life has been a whirlwind since the '94 Olympics.

It is a process of finding the right music then planning a costume to fit that style of music.

My hobbies are painting, crafts, and I like golfing.

I took group lessons at a rink near my home. We first had to learn how to stand up on the ice wearing skates. Eventually we learned to move forward, but soon found out that it was not that easy to stop! So that was our next important lesson.

I won my first medal when I was nine years old. It was at the Boston Open.

I was a tomboy who liked to play rough just like my two older brothers. That's probably why I liked the athletic part of skating - especially the jumping!

I started skating when I was six years old.

I was thrilled one year when I was younger when not only did my brothers get hockey sticks for Christmas - but I did too!

My dad worked several jobs to pay for my expense in skating.

Even now, my husband Jerry, our son Matthew and I live only five minutes away from my parents home, and my brothers live about ten minutes away. It's been great having such a supportive family.

I worked also, doing things such as our paper route and, later on, waitressing.

I get to see the different sides of skating now which involves not only competing, but entertainment.

But it seems that the judging maybe they shouldn't at least see the practices all week long. That can taint the way they go into the judging and the outlook of what's going to happen, instead of just watching those four minutes and judging on those minutes alone.

My parents never pressured me to skate. They always said I could quit if I wanted to. They only expected me to skate when they had already paid for the expensive lessons. But, otherwise they said I could do what I wanted to do.

I think it's a lot harder for the pros to have a long career in ice dance and in pairs. It seems the singles have a little bit of a longer career.

It wasn't always easy getting up at 5 o'clock in the morning to go to the rink. Sometimes I wanted to just go back to sleep.

But after a few minutes of convincing myself that I really wanted to go - telling myself that I love skating and that my coach is there waiting for me - I would get up and go. And my mother would always get up and eat breakfast with me!

I like to try all kinds of styles so it always challenges me and forces me to try to look different.

People are really sick of seeing the winner not win and what the public thinks should happen.

One of the things I like best about the Halloween show is that I change outfits about six times in the show. It is a lot of fun to play the different characters.

People would ask me why I was doing what I was doing - but I always told them that I just loved to skate. There was no other explanation.

Falling down became second nature and it really didn't bother me.

I do not have any pets. We travel too much.

Even now I can't describe why I love skating so much.

It was never about winning medals or being famous.

Yes, I am Algerian of Moroccan origin through my parents, but all my life is Algeria. I was born there.

My parents were amazing people who had no business being together - and they knew it.

We're parents first, and once you have kids, everybody knows that you have priority lists. Number one is your family and everything else just kind of finds its place.

The education of my brother and myself was of paramount importance to my parents, and in addition to their strong encouragement, they were prepared to make any sacrifice to further our intellectual development.

I belong to a specific category of writers, those who speak and write in a language different from that of their parents.

My sister and I were born in San Francisco. When our parents died, we came down here to live with relatives.

The young always have the same problem - how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.

It's up to each person's parents whether they think it's too frightening or too violent, how much their kids can handle, what they want to teach them, what they want to show them.

I'd hope to reach any kid who feels apart from the group - those who seem to be outsiders, who feel different. Kids who want to reach their parents often don't know how to do so.

That other saying, I'm a part of all that I have met, I think that would have to begin with my wonderful parents back in Atlanta when I was a youngster five years old I was tongue tied.

I have parents come up to me and say, 'I don't know who you are, but my kid wants his picture taken with you.'

Parents are like shuttles on a loom. They join the threads of the past with threads of the future and leave their own bright patterns as they go.

Parents should watch what their children watch and not use TV as a babysitter. If a show is objectionable they should turn it OFF. They should write the president of the network and tell him they are never going to watch that program again and why.

I received my parents' permission and went into the Navy on June 3, 1941.

I'm doing naughty things, I'm drinking too much, I'm going to clubs. It really didn't matter to me, other than the fact that some parents wouldn't let their kids hang out with me.

Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore.

My dad was born in Chicago in 1908... his parents came from Russia. They settled in Chicago, where they lived in a little tiny grocery store with eight or nine children - in the backroom all together - and my grandmother got the idea to go into the movie business.

Parents know how to push your buttons because, hey, they sewed them on.

I always wanted to make sure my parents didn't have to work again for the rest of their lives.