I've matured - just growing up and learning more about my sport and more about myself.

Understanding how to compete better has really made a difference.

It's cool because here everybody has the same goal. We're all competing for our countries. We're all coming down here to do our best. And we all are the best athletes in our own countries.

My goal is to peak big in Rio because my goal is to win gold.

It is imperative to change the way we look at education. We should invest in the foundation of school readiness from birth to age 5.

Every summer, I regret that I didn't become a college teacher. Such a sweet life! With all that vacation time! You'll never get me to believe that being a tenured professor at a good college is anything but Heaven on earth.

In the past, people generally believed they could acquire magic in two ways: through learning the craft, either from another practitioner or from books; or through obtaining magic from a powerful being-think Faust or the classic, demonized witch, both of whom get their mojo from Satan.

My mom and my dad wanted my brother and I to have a better life, you know, better education, better jobs. It was probably harder, much, much harder, for my parents. When you're a kid, you can learn a language much more easily; I learned English in less than a year.