I've been around water my whole life, so I basically really learned at a young age the importance of it but also one day, at one point, clean water will be hard to find. There's so many people throughout the world that don't have access to clean water. Obviously we're extremely fortunate to have the opportunities that we have and to have all the water that we have. Like I said, and I can't say it enough, we all should work together to try and conserve as much as we possible can.

Other nights ... I visualize to the point that I know exactly what I want to do: dive, glide, stroke, flip, reach the wall, hit the split time to the hundredth, then swim back again for as many times as I need to finish the race.

If I bring back only one gold people are going to say it's a disappointment. But not too many of them own an Olympic gold medal so if I get one I'm going to be happy.

Nobody is going to put a limit on what I'm doing.

I live a pretty conservative life, so I probably really haven't done anything crazy.

Swimming is more than a once-every-four-years sport. My goal is to bring attention to swimming - to give it some personality.

I don't like to be second in anything. I was trying, I just wasn't going anywhere.