I'm not in my element standing around in a bikini in front of strangers. I never stand up in a bikini, even at the swimming pool. I feel like a normal person when it comes to things like that. I'm like any other girl who doesn't want to show her bottom.
I want to be able to look back and say, 'I've done everything I can, and I was successful. ' I don't want to look back and say I should have done this or that. I'd like to change things for the younger generation of swimmers coming along.
We wanted to see how close we could get to the world record. We'll take that for right now.
I closed my eyes and curled my fists around the things I knew for sure: That a scallop has thirty-five eyes, all blue. That a tuna will suffocate if it ever stops swimming. That I was loved. That this time, it was not me who broke
God has given me the ability. The rest is up to me. Believe. Believe. Believe.
Thinking about swimming isn't much like actually getting in the water. Actually getting in the water can take your breath away.
Once I was in Texas, where they had this thing called Ralph the Swimming Pig. You went into a theater and you were looking through a great big window at people dressed as mermaids swimming around with oxygen tanks. One of the mermaids had a bottle of milk, and a small Ralph the Swimming Pig dove in and swam over. Naturally, afterward, I said in the cafeteria, "What happens to the Ralphs when they get bigger? Would you serve Ralphs who have retired?" "Oh no! We would never do such a thing. "
I've never been swimming, and that's because it's never been more than half an hour since I last ate.
I come to Maui and go surfing, standup paddling, slacklining, swimming, and free-diving.
I enjoy tennis, though don't play very often nowadays, and skiing. . . oh yes and swimming.
I often think that we are like the carp swimming contentedly in that pond. We live out our lives in our own "pond," confident that our universe consists of only the familiar and the visible. We smugly refuse to admit that parallel universes or dimensions can exist next to ours, just beyond our grasp. If our scientists invent concepts like forces, it is only because they cannot visualize the invisible vibrations that fill the empty space around us. Some scientists sneer at the mention of higher dimensions because they cannot be conveniently measured in the laboratory.
Competition is great for everyone. Sports can teach you so much at an early age, including camaraderie and sportsmanship. Competition aspect is something I've always been big on - I always wanted to compete in something. It was swimming for many years, then I moved on to basketball. I had to find a way to channel my competitive energy, so I'm lucky that basketball worked out for me.
If you should rear a duck in the heart of the Sahara, no doubt it would swim if you brought it to the Nile.
I love going to the beach in the tropics and doing whatever I do - surfing, swimming or being - and the glow when I get a tan that deepens. I walk around with red and gold in my skin and feel like the most beautiful thing on the planet!
When I was six I wanted to be a ballerina. By the time I was eight I was fairly sure this plan wasn't panning out. I began aspiring to be an "Aquamaid" at a resort called "Aquarena Springs" in my hometown of San Marcos: Aquamaids got to wear mermaid tails and feed milk bottles underwater to Ralph the Swimming Pig for an audience submerged in a "submarine".
I'm not saying that everyone should swim with sharks, but sometimes you have to jump over your own shadow in order to learn something that you will never forget for the rest of your life. Then you know you can conquer your fears.
Anything I do, I do with 110 percent. Right now, my biggest goal is the 2016 Olympics. My main focus is that. But after the sport of swimming-when it's all said and done-I want to get involved in fashion. I want to design my own clothing line. I'm very into fashion. It's something I really want to focus on when swimming is over.
Throw your children in the surf and let them get used to it. They have to learn all about rips and tides and swimming between the flags and all that sort of stuff. I know that sounds ridiculous but it's true.
I concentrate on preparing to swim my race and let the other swimmers think about me, not me about them.
We are swimming on the face of time and all else has drowned, is drowning, or will drown.