This is a lifelong dream of mine and I'm very very glad to be with you.

I am overwhelmed by the strength of my body and the power of my mind. For one moment, just one second, I feel immortal.

A lot of athletes have this sort of invincibility: [The jellyfish] should worry about me. I don't worry about them. I'll just swim right through them.

Swimming is probably the ultimate of burnout sports. It's ironic because millions of people who swim as their regular exercise love the meditation aspect of it; you don't wind up with any orthopedic injuries. But when you swim at a world class level for hours and hours - the loneness of the long distance runner.

From age eleven to age sixteen I lived a spartan life without the usual adolescent uncertainty. I wanted to be the best swimmer in the world, and there was nothing else.

The mantra I used was 'find a way.'

I wanted to teach myself some life lessons at the age of 60 and one of them was that you don't give up.