“I didn’t get the high school opportunity, but it always worked out.”

I started gymnastics when I was six years old. I was at day care, and they took us on a field trip to a gym club, Bannon’s Gymnastix in Houston, and that’s how I got started.

I’m the first Simone Biles.

One of my favourite things to do is compete for a crowd. It’s just really fun for me.

It doesn’t even matter if I don’t win a self-gold – after every meet, I have pizza. Pepperoni pizza.

I don’t fear what will happen, but you just get ahead of yourself, like, ‘Oh my gosh, I wish it would happen now.’

Father served in the Air Force for 22 years.

I was built this way for a reason, so I’m going to use it.

Growing up, it was kind of a struggle being small, since everyone would make fun of you – except for when it came to hide and seek: that’s the only advantage I ever had!

I spend a lot of time in the gym training, and Core Power is a great fit for my nutritional needs.

I never felt I had questions or needed answers or had a part of me that was missing.

I take things one step at a time.

I have practice from 9 A.M. to 12 P.M., and then I drive home and eat lunch, which is either chicken or fish so I get the protein.

If I won gold in 2016, I think it would change my life.

I’m always trying to push myself to the limit to see what I can do. It’s my strong will that I’ve always had since I was a kid.

I feel like I’m small and mighty and pack a powerful punch, just like Tide PODS.

If they said, ‘Do five pull-ups,’ I would always want to do 10.

I’m so grateful to my parents for my upbringing and for all of the opportunities that I was provided with, but I also learned at a young age that success is not given, it is earned and that has always been something that motivates me.

Men think that self-sacrifice is the most charming of all the cardinal virtues for women, and in order to keep it in healthy working order, they make opportunities for its illustration as often as possible.

We should be proud that so many want to come to America, that it is still seen as the land of opportunity. Let’s make it a land of legal work, not black-market jobs. Let’s make it a land of work, not welfare. Our land should be one of assimilation, not hiding in the shadows.

One of the people I’ve always wanted to emulate in pursuing that dream was Meryl Streep, in terms of the different types of roles she’s been able to play and the number of different stories she’s been able to tell.

I would love to be remembered as a person who used her life to inspire others in any way, shape or form.

And that’s what people want to see when they go to the theater. I believe at the end of the day, they want to see themselves – parts of their lives they can recognize. And I feel if I can achieve that, it’s pretty spectacular.

The Democrats promised equalizing outcomes through unlimited federal assistance while Republicans offered something that seemed less tangible – the promise of equalizing opportunity through free markets.

Sometimes you see how humanity can rise above any kind of cultural ills and hate that a person’s capacity to love and communicate and forgive can be bigger than anything else.