Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed, Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers.

I believe that every person, male and female, needs to be in a protective mode at all times of alertness to potential danger. The world is full of potential attacks, potential disasters.

Feminism is dead. The movement is absolutely dead. The women's movement tried to suppress dissident voices for way too long. There's no room for dissent.

If colleges and universities are really concerned about women's rights, then they must adjust to a far more flexible structure to allow young women students to take leaves of absence if they want to have children early.

In terms of my career, having the gold definitely changed my life. The Olympics are different, you know? They're every four years and it's such a small group.

I absolutely loved learning how to do stage make-up at 16: it was so interesting to learn all about what you can do with make-up, such as contouring or shadowing eyes. We had a lot of fun.

I thought that I could have a career in music. I really didn't know exactly what I wanted to do or how I would go about doing it.

I don't have any contempt for the men who have to have jobs and have to commute and have to pay the mortgage and have to get their kids an education. To me, that's the backbone of America, to coin a phrase.