“The floor exercise is a way to express your personality.”

I started gymnastics when I was six years old. I was at day care, and they took us on a field trip to a gym club, Bannon’s Gymnastix in Houston, and that’s how I got started.

I’m the first Simone Biles.

One of my favourite things to do is compete for a crowd. It’s just really fun for me.

It doesn’t even matter if I don’t win a self-gold – after every meet, I have pizza. Pepperoni pizza.

I don’t fear what will happen, but you just get ahead of yourself, like, ‘Oh my gosh, I wish it would happen now.’

Father served in the Air Force for 22 years.

I was built this way for a reason, so I’m going to use it.

Growing up, it was kind of a struggle being small, since everyone would make fun of you – except for when it came to hide and seek: that’s the only advantage I ever had!

I spend a lot of time in the gym training, and Core Power is a great fit for my nutritional needs.

I never felt I had questions or needed answers or had a part of me that was missing.

I take things one step at a time.

I have practice from 9 A.M. to 12 P.M., and then I drive home and eat lunch, which is either chicken or fish so I get the protein.

If I won gold in 2016, I think it would change my life.

I’m always trying to push myself to the limit to see what I can do. It’s my strong will that I’ve always had since I was a kid.

I feel like I’m small and mighty and pack a powerful punch, just like Tide PODS.

If they said, ‘Do five pull-ups,’ I would always want to do 10.

The meaning of life is contained in every single expression of life.

I’ve learned that love is not possessive and I’ve learned that love won’t wait. Now I’ve learned that love needs expression, but I learned too late.

The writing is important, but the way you say the line and the pause you give it, the facial expression – all of that is very important.

Everyone of our relationships with nature and man must be a definite expression of our real, individual life.

I want freedom for the full expression of my personality.

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

In an expression of true gratitude, sadness is conspicuous only by its absence.

Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.