“I used to always go to church on holidays, but I don’t go much any more.”

I’ve never lifted a single weight in my life.

If I bring back only one gold people are going to say it’s a disappointment. But not too many of them own an Olympic gold medal so if I get one I’m going to be happy.

There are too many kids who are drowning for lack of water safety. That’s something I’d like to do. Teaching kids to live an active lifestyle.

It doesn’t matter what else is going on. When you walk into your arena or your – whatever you excel at, you’re there to take care of the job that you have to do.

I’ll be working with kids for the rest of my life.

I feel most at home in the water. I disappear. That’s where I belong.

I want to be able to look back and say, ‘I’ve done everything I can, and I was successful.’ I don’t want to look back and say I should have done this or that. I’d like to change things for the younger generation of swimmers coming along.

I believe in God; I’m not saying I’m highly religious.

I am 26 and, and I don’t recover as fast as I have in the past.

For the millionth time, I’m retired. I keep saying it, and people keep answering, ‘Well, maybe he doesn’t mean it this time.’ But I do.

I wouldn’t say anything is impossible. I think that everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and put the work and time into it.

I want to retire how I want to retire – and I have a great opportunity to do that.

I listen to music before my competitions to get me pumped up. It helps me stay focused.

Every day after I wake up, I think, ‘Wait, this can’t be real; I’m still going to wake up.’

For so long, I looked at myself as literally a kid who was talented who would go up and down the pool. That’s it. Nothing else. Very few people knew who I really was.

I learned how fast you can go from being an international hero to being a reference in a joke on a late night talk show.

I wept heartily over this poor little deceased soul. It was the first sentient being I had ever killed. I was now a killer. I was now as guilty as Cain. I was sixteen years old, a harmless boy, bookish and religious, and now I had blood on my hands. It’s a terrible burden to carry. All sentient life is sacred.

George Bush Junior [George W Bush] was a religious fanatic, and Tony Blair wasn’t far behind in a way.

By the 1970s, pornography had caught up with The Block, where performers were totally in the nude. I wasn’t going to do that, and I certainly wasn’t about to let my girls do it. After all, I’m religious, and if my mother knew I was performing in the nude, she would have had a heart attack.

I used to think you had to be special for God to use you, but now I know you simply need to say yes.

It’s hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.

Let’s say black, the whole black religious experience, here, is very impressive to me, because when I first arrived I realized that people carry their faith with so much pride.

I tentatively believe in a god. I was brought up in a fairly religious home. I think the world is compatible with reincarnation, karma, all that stuff.

And also a lot of Muslims are no more religious then the average Swede. For them it’s natural that human rights come first.