I am very familiar with Hungary, because I grew up in Romania, which borders it.

The crowd sometimes plays a tremendous role to give you wings and carry you to victory.

You have to have competent people evaluating the athlete, not the housewives!

Success depends on how much you are willing to sacrifice, how much you are willing to alter your everyday life for a particular goal.

No competition, no progress.

Back in Romania, always I was struggling to compete with Vladislav Rastorotsky, the great Russian coach of Lyudmila Turishcheva. He was a powerful coach, internationally. I took him like the major challenge of my life, and pretty soon I'm beating him and we are pushing each other so hard, so fierce. But out of the arena, we are friends.

The rest of the world laughed at American gymnastics before I came.