As a young child, I played the violin. I think that that started the spark.

Then came the choreography... the impact of music and choreography tends to really emphasize an overall feeling of what you really want out of the program.

I really loved what the guys were doing more than anything, how high they jumped, how effortless it was.

My sport taught me what I could do with my talents, whether in the rink or in the rest of my life.

As a young child, I played the violin. I think that that started the spark.

We wanted to be achievers, but being an achiever didn't mean that you stopped being a woman.

Skating was the vessel into which I could pour my heart and soul.

When I was on the ice, in the lights, with the music and the motion, there was a certain kind of flirtation that gave great energy and expressiveness to my performance.

When the going got tough, I really had to draw on many of the same competitive instincts I did when I was skating. I really had to put my head down and stay positive. I had to fight.

The first thing is to love your sport. Never do it to please someone else. It has to be yours.

I think skating helped me find myself.

Giving life to music through skating was something I wanted to be known for.

In 1968, in the midst of the tumultuous 1960s, the Olympics were much more than just another event.

The world went by, and we didn't get caught up in all the other things, because we didn't have time. We had no spare time. It was always thinking about training and focusing on what we wanted, our goals.

I think exercise tests us in so many ways, our skills, our hearts, our ability to bounce back after setbacks. This is the inner beauty of sports and competition, and it can serve us all well as adult athletes.

I'm aware that I'm very fringe, and it's nice that way.

I am indeed a king because I know how to rule myself.

The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.

When somebody wants me to sign an old picture, it's like looking at another person.

Writing songs was like my ticket to the world, I think.

I think that the Cold War was an exceptional and unnecessary piece of cruelty.

There are 13 stories in 'The Fencepost Chronicles' about corrupt tribal leaders, trouble on the reserve, survival schemes, and communal drinking.

I do take lots of time off between projects, but when the right thing comes along, I don't like to turn it down, I've been doing this for a decade, and I remember what it was like when I started. You spend maybe five percent of your time actually doing it, and the rest of the time, you're trying to get that five percent.

I think we are all programmed to please as we grow up.

I'm a wire-walker, but actually, I'm a moviemaker that hasn't done his first movie.

We are bringing women into politics to change the nature of politics, to change the vision, to change the institutions. Women are not wedded to the policies of the past. We didn't craft them. They didn't let us.

Sometimes I say things that I think are obviously sarcastic and people take them quite literally.

When I was a new mom, I used to think that life was going to be balanced, and I strived for that. But life is crazy!

Comedies are just never that expensive quite frankly. They really aren't. We aren't doing green screen shooting, so even Hangover II in Bangkok might seem like it's expensive, you're flying over and back, but they're just not that expensive to make when you do it the way we do it which is very focused and I've done it before.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses.

No mind is thoroughly well organized that is deficient in a sense of humor.

Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.

I'm pretty sure I would never do a full frontal in a movie - for personal reasons, I wouldn't really want to show that.

A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.

To stop terrorists before the strike, we must do three things: deny them entry into the country, curtail their freedom of action inside the country, and deprive them of material and moral support from within the country.

I like what's obscure.

Hillary is not an agent of change. Nor does she have any idea how to restore rapid economic growth. Instead, she is a prisoner of the Left. Tax the rich, inequality, redistribution.

A failure is not always a mistake. It may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.

I've always loved writing emotionally rich, character-driven novels that explore the way people fall in love and deal with life's triumphs and tragedies. I enjoy writing the contemporary and historical books equally, though perhaps 'enjoy' is the wrong word.