“I consider myself normal. I’ve spent 20 years in the pool. I consider that something that’s normal.”

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 think to be – for me to be an American is – you know, it’s one of the greatest things in the world for – you know, for me just because I’ve been able to grow up with everything. The freedom. You know, in my eyes this is the greatest country in the world.

I live a pretty conservative life, so I probably really haven’t done anything crazy.

People say to me, ‘You’re so lucky. You get to see the world.’ But I don’t. I go to the hotel and to the pools and back again. That’s it.

It’s cool just because I’ve had this dream of changing the sport of swimming and it’s finally happening.