I wanted to do something nobody ever did. This goes hand in hand with my goal of changing swimming.

I treat every race the same. We all wanted to swim fast today and give something back to the crowd.

I consider myself normal. I've spent 20 years in the pool. I consider that something that's normal.

My goal is one Olympic gold medal. Not many people in this world can say, 'I'm an Olympic gold medalist.'

Every day, there's always something to be worried about; you turn on the news and see something different every day, and it's terrible. Hopefully, as Americans, and as the inhabitants of the world, we can come together. We need to change lives - whether that's conserving water, destigmatizing mental health treatment or something else. We can change lives.

I don't want to be the next Mark Spitz; I want to be the first Michael Phelps

If you look at me, basically my whole entire life I've been around water. So when you look at a stat like, "If you leave the faucet running for two minutes while you brush your teeth you waste four gallons of water," to me that's mind-blowing. There are so many people that don't even have access to clean water, and people leave their faucets running. For me it was something that fit with things that I believe in.