I don't call them sacrifices. I call them exchanges.

Injury taught me I need to learn how to face challenges.

When I was 3 my parents put me in gymnastics because I was a bundle of energy and they just didn't know what to do with me! They put me in a Tots class and I just fell in love with it.

I was always known as that stocky, muscular, powerful, short, athlete. People always wondered if I was on steroids, and it was because I wasn't that long and lean, flexible, artistic gymnast. It didn't affect me too much but it got to the point where I tried to be that long and lean gymnast, and it just wasn't possible.

I think about my goals. There were a lot of times in gymnastics when I really didn't want to go in and train, but you can't make it to the Olympics if you don't train!

With literature, sometimes a book is presented in the media as being say, a Muslim story or an African story, when essentially it's a universal story which we can all relate to it, no matter what race or social background we come from

Something my mom taught me when I was little is that everything happens for a reason.