“A good 80 percent of the vault is still physical and another percentage of it, 20, 25 percent is mental.”

This team just wasn’t good enough today, but they had the unity I always wanted. To have an American team like this has always been a dream of mine.

I believe in playing with your heart, with every fiber in your body-fairly, squarely, by the rules-to win. And I believe that any man’s finest moment.

The crowd sometimes plays a tremendous role to give you wings and carry you to victory.

I still love to find and develop the young athletes in traditional ways. I like to watch the physical and mental growth. That has always been very exciting.

I am very familiar with Hungary, because I grew up in Romania, which borders it.

My attitude is never to be satisfied, never enough, never.

Back in Romania, always I was struggling to compete with Vladislav Rastorotsky, the great Russian coach of Lyudmila Turishcheva. He was a powerful coach, internationally.

I consider myself very lucky that I could live my life through all the ups and downs.

In gymnastics, smaller will always be better in many ways. The stress in the head, that will be the same for all. But the stress on the body and the concussions it must endure, that will always be easier for the little ones.

Success depends on how much you are willing to sacrifice, how much you are willing to alter your everyday life for a particular goal.

The Olympics shows the community what gymnastics is all about.

I know gymnastics. It’s always been a subjective appreciation.

The greatest fulfillment of all he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out and lies exhausted on the floor of battle-victorious.

You have to have competent people evaluating the athlete, not the housewives!

No competition, no progress.

When I open many books, or most leading women’s magazines, or see almost all TV shows, I don’t find myself at all. I am completely anonymous. My value system is not there.

I laugh, and it’s laughter, not light, that casts out the darkness building within me, that reminds me I am still alive, even in this strange place where everything I’ve ever known is coming apart.

The Bible says that our real problem is that every one of us is building our identity on something besides Jesus.

The building of a house, the writing of a novel, the demolition of a bridge, and, eminently, the finish of a voyage.

To me, the most shocking thing about grit is how little we know, how little science knows, about building it.

The Liberal State is a mask behind which there is no face; it is a scaffolding behind which there is no building.

At least 50 times. I’ve jumped off a building, jumped off a cliff in a car. I’ve been in bedrooms when women came in with knives and guns.

I don’t measure success by how many buildings have my name on it.

Of course I lie to people. But I lie altruistically – for our mutual good. The lie is the basic building block of good manners. That may seem mildly shocking to a moralist – but then what isn’t?