“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.”

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.

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

I have the opportunity to be part of swimming history. To take the sport to a new level would be an honor for me. There’s no better time to try this than now.

I got the stamina. I can close.

My goal is one Olympic gold medal. Not many people in this world can say, ‘I’m an Olympic gold medalist.’

Every sponsor I’ve had has been something that fit my lifestyle, fit my personality.

I want to test my maximum and see how much I can do. And I want to change the world of swimming.

I still remember the days, not wanting to see anybody, not wanting to talk to anybody, really not wanting to live. I was on an express elevator to the bottom floor, wherever that might be.

I’ve been able to get an excitement back in the water.

I like to just think of myself as a normal person who just has a passion, has a goal and a dream and goes out and does it. And that’s really how I’ve always lived my life.

I think sometimes I guess you see records, say you want to get there and use that as motivation. In a way, it’s kind of cool if there is a possibility to rewrite history and be up there with the greats of Olympic history.

Once I’m already in my room, I still have to open a door to get into my bed. It’s like a giant box. It’s like the boy in a bubble.

I have a lot of goals, but I think that I just want to take it day by day.

I think goals should never be easy, they should force you to work, even if they are uncomfortable at the time.

Well, I would say that I’m just drifting. Here in the pool.

It seems to me I spent my life in car pools, but you know, that’s how I kept track of what was going on.

I believe that if you took privacy and you said, I’m willing to give up all of my privacy to be secure. So you weighted it as a zero.

This life is like a swimming pool. You dive into the water, but you can’t see how deep it is.

We are fighting a Labour Party whose avowed enemy is capitalist bosses, whose instinct is to see income as a common pool resource, and whose leading figures find profit morally repugnant.

Even in high school, I’d tell my mom I was sick of swimming and wanted to try to play golf. She wasn’t too happy. She’d say, ‘Think about this.’ And I’d always end up getting back in the pool.

Sex at age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope.

The building of cities and towns, the cutting down of forests, and the draining of pools and swamps have deprived American birds of their original homes and food supply.