I spent my entire childhood in an environment in which the mighty of the earth had no place outside story books and dreams.

Love of, and respect for, the humble routine of everyday life and its creatures was the only moral commandment which carried conviction when I was a child.

From the very first, my countrymen have followed my literary career, now criticizing, now praising my work, but hardly ever letting a single word be buried in indifference.

My thoughts fly to the old Icelandic storytellers who created our classics, whose personalities were so bound up with the masses that their names, unlike their lives' work, have not been preserved for posterity.

Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy and serenity.

I have accumulated no money but I accumulate a lot of happiness. If you get rich, you have an apartment with an extra bedroom - and then you die.

Training with Bela and Marta Karolyi took the joy out of the Olympics for me. I look back and feel there was a lot of verbal and physical abuse. For years, I felt it was my problem.

I could have had someone else take care of my child but I did it because that was my moral obligation and also it was a joy and I felt it was in the best interests of the child.