“I am like any typical teenager.”

Mentally, I have to get my body and mind in the right place before I start the routine, but once into the zone, it’s like I turn on a switch. I envision myself doing the same thing for the Olympic Games.

I have dual citizenship.

I would be like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I wish I could go to prom.’ But then I think, ‘You know what? A lot of people can’t say they’ve ever done what I do – they’ll never have this opportunity.’

So far, my goals stops at making an Olympic team, and then if that happens, then I’ll jot down more goals.

Most people would focus on concentrating more, and I can’t do that. It almost makes me overthink a lot of my things. I have to focus on not thinking.

You can have fun and do well. Just let loose a bit.

You can still be very good at what you do and have fun.

We strive for greatness.

As a kid growing up, I was never like, ‘I want to go to the Olympics,’ so having to pass on 2012 because I was too young didn’t bother me at all.

I always say my biggest competitor is myself because, whenever I step out there on the mat, I’m competing against myself to prove that I can do this and that I am very well trained, prepared for it.

In the morning, I usually get up between 7:40 A.M. and 7:45 A.M., and then I’ll brush my teeth, do my hair, and just throw on my leotard and my clothes and go to the kitchen.

My mom, Nellie, got me a rosary at church. I don’t use it to pray before a competition. I’ll just pray normally to myself, but I have it there in case.

Most athletes get intimidated once they see how many fans are out there, but it almost calms me down in a way because I think of it as a fun way to show off what I’ve been working on.

I guess I just have really tough skin.

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.

The human heart is always drawn by love.

All the arts serving human desires and needs are derived from the breath that Godsent into the human body.

I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Glance at the sun. See the moon and the stars. Gaze at the beauty of earth’s greenings. Now, think. What delight God gives to humankind with all these things . All nature is at the disposal of humankind. We are to work with it. For without we cannot survive.

The more I understand the mind and the human experience, the more I begin to suspect there is no such thing as unhappiness; there is only ungratefulness.

The greatest misfortune that can come to a human being is to lose his inner peace. No outer force can rob him of it. It is his own thoughts, his own actions, that rob him of it.

When a coincidence seems amazing, that’s because the human mind isn’t wired to naturally comprehend probability & statistics.

My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind.