I just barely got through school. The problem was a learning disability, at a time when there was no where to get help.

Realize that the reason most people fail isn't because of the competition but because of the limits they place upon themselves, allowing defeat to take over. Take responsibility for your destiny. You can come up with a performance, if you can reach down and dig deep enough into your competitive soul. You can overcome tremendous obstacles.

I was afraid the teacher was going to make me read in front of class and I was going to look bad. [But] if I wasn't dyslexic, I probably wouldn't have won the Games. If I had been a better reader, then that would have come easily, sports would have come easily. And I never would have realized that the way you get ahead in life is hard work.

There was a French activist and writer, Simone de Beauvoir, who said, 'You are not born woman. You become one' ... Words I live by.

If I was lying on my deathbed and I had kept this secret and never ever did anything about it, I would be lying there saying, 'You just blew your entire life.'

I'm not stuck in anybody's body. I'm me.

I'm saying goodbye to people's perception of me and who I am, I'm not saying goodbye to me, because this has always been me.