I just try to touch people's hearts in a way through skating, so they're not just witnessing a performance, they're feeling a performance and they're a part of it.

And so figure skating was a great vehicle for me to kind of be competitive at something, without having to be big.

I had a ninth grade teacher who told me I was much smarter and much better than I was allowing myself to be.

What was really funny is that as I got older all those guys who called me a sissy in junior high school wanted me to be their best friend because they wanted to meet all the girls that I knew in figure skating.

I started skating and I kind of liked it because I could run circles around the guys that wouldn't pick me to play baseball.

Always try to maintain complete tolerance and always make an effort to give people more than they expect.

Half of figure skating is opinion, convincing judges.

Male figure skating is different than female figure skating; we're not America's sweetheart.

Adversity, and perseverance and all these things can shape you. They can give you a value and a self-esteem that is priceless.

So as an amateur Olympic competitor I loved criticism, because it made me better. But now as a professional I don't really know how to channel it or where to take it, so I don't take it quite as well.

But I never really thought that I would be extraordinarily successful at skating, it's just something that happened, you know.

I was nine-years-old when I first put on skates.

Everything that I've ever been able to accomplish in skating and in life has come out of adversity and perseverance.

The only disability in life is a bad attitude.

I'm very accessible. I don't get into this ego thing.

Most other competitions are individual achievements, but the Olympic Games is something that belongs to everybody.

I just try to touch people's hearts in a way through skating, so they're not just witnessing a performance, they're feeling a performance and they're a part of it.

Rationality is not one of this industry's attributes.

I was more interested in skating and the girls and traveling than I was in calculus.

When you turn professional, you become an entertainer, and like every other entertainer, you don't want to get a bad review.

When you're expected to win and you have the press saying that you are going to win the Olympic gold medal, and you're the only sure thing in the Olympics, it can undermine your confidence.

I didn't want to be the sissy figure skater, you know.

The high road is always respected. Honesty and integrity are always rewarded.

Without strength and courage it's really hard to perform at the highest levels of international figure skating, because you're alone on the ice and you only have seven minutes over two nights to prove yourself.

Fame is a very confusing thing, because you are recognized by a lot of people that you've never seen before, and they're at a great advantage.

That's what makes the Ryder Cup in golf so much better than the Masters or the U.S. Open. To be a part of something that is not about personal achievement, but about representing everyone and sharing it with the whole country, it's wonderful.

And the fact that I liked to show off and be the center of attention really lends itself to figure skating very well.

From the fall of October, 1980 to March, 1984 I never lost a competition.

I don't think most teachers realize how much impact they have.

I graduated a the top of my class in the '84 Olympic Games; I won a gold medal.

Male figure skating is different than female figure skating were not Americas sweetheart.

Without strength and courage its really hard to perform at the highest levels of international figure skating because youre alone on the ice and you only have seven minutes over two nights to prove yourself.

Half of figure skating is opinion convincing judges.

Without feeling abashed by my ignorance, I confess that I am absolutely unable to say. In the absence of an appearance of learning, my answer has at least one merit, that of perfect sincerity.

Words are the children of reason and, therefore, can't explain it. They really can't translate feeling because they're not part of it. That's why it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling.

The best compliment to a child or a friend is the feeling you give him that he has been set free to make his own inquiries, to come to conclusions that are right for him, whether or not they coincide with your own.

The feeling remains that God is on the journey, too.

I've always wanted to sing, just as I've always known that one day I would have my own niche in the annals of song. It was a feeling I had.

The methods of peace propaganda which aim at establishing peace doctrine by argument and by creating a feeling favorable to peace in general seem to fall short of reaching the springs of human action and of dealing with the causes of the conduct which they seek to modify.

I love making people laugh. It's an addiction and it's probably dysfunctional, but I am addicted to it and there's no greater pleasure for me than sitting in a theater and feeling a lot of people losing control of themselves.

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.

On that road of the informer, it is always night. I cannot ever inform against anyone without feeling something die within me. I inform without pleasure, because it is necessary.

I was as big as I have ever been. I had a personal trainer and was working out. I was feeling good. I was muscular. I had never weighed more than 155 pounds.

Lately, I can't shake the feeling that I've been living a dream for the last 10 years or so; I can't account for most of my 20s, and I have to continually remind myself that certain people are dead now and many of my friends have children.

The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another... and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world.

Collectively, we must do more than simply watch, with resignation and a feeling of powerlessness, reports on the evening news about the latest terrorist atrocity.

But even if I'm left high and dry at the end of this wild journey, just taking it is a great feeling.

For me concrete poetry was a particular way of using language which came out of a particular feeling, and I don't have control over whether this feeling is in me or not.

They must have a feeling of do or die. It is such an overcrowded profession.