“Thinking about swimming isn’t much like actually getting in the water. Actually getting in the water can take your breath away.”

Becoming mature means learning to accept what you cannot change, facing unresolved sorrows and learning to love life as it really happens, not as you would have it happen.

Everyone has unique gifts and talents. What you love is what you’re gifted at. To be completely happy, to live a completely fulfilled life, you have to do what you love.

Doing your own thing is a generous act. Being gifted creates obligations, which means you owe the world your best effort at the work you love. You too are a natural resource.

Resentment is weak and lowers your self-esteem.

Find what you love, because greatness is based on great gifts. If you love something, you can count on the fact that you are genetically gifted at it.

You cannot tell your heart what it wants. Your heart will tell you

Unkind criticism is never part of a meaningful critique of you. Its purpose is not to teach or to help, its purpose is to punish.

When you play it too safe, you’re taking the biggest risk of your life. Time is the only wealth we’re given.

The amount of good luck coming your way depends on your willingness to act.

Sometimes life isn’t about who you were or are, but it’s about who you are becoming.

And our dreams are who we are.

We all need to learn a new language for love – a language that speaks not in socks, pancakes, and paychecks, but in shared fascination with physics or poetry, delight in each other’s uniqueness, and mutual practical and emotional support.

Whatever your dreams are, start taking them very, very seriously.

Down deep we really know our worth, but we don’t have easy access to that knowledge. We need to hear praise coming from outside ourselves or we won’t remember that we deserve it.

Real obstacles don’t take you in circles. They can be overcome. Invented ones are like a maze.

Action helps you think and raises your self-esteem. Good luck happens when you’re in action. Ask yourself, “Does this go toward or away from what I want?” There’s an animal in us, and it has great instincts. Scan for a desire and follow it. Set a goal, any goal, and start doing everything you can think of to achieve it.

I haven’t swam in any of the rivers outside of Baltimore. I try to keep it in the pool.

This is my 20th year in the sport. I’ve known swimming and that’s it. I don’t want to swim past age 30; if I continue after this Olympics, and come back in 2016, I’ll be 31. I’m looking forward to being able to see the other side of the fence.

I want to continue the sport of swimming. I’m not going to give up until I think it’s reached where I want it to go.

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.

I love swimming in rivers, and well remember once jumping in at Chiswick.

The fact that the same proportionalities rule optimal running,

Flying and swimming is not a coincidence rather it is an illustration of the fact that a universal principle is involved.

When I put something into motion