The newspapers loved pinup pictures of pretty young swimmers and as a national champion I got more than my share of space in the sports pages.

You will soon find that I am a bit obsessive about my work. And that is a little sad one often feels strangely restricted not finding time to simmer although one actually has many interests.

I loved fairy tales when I was a kid. Grimm. The grimmer the better. I loved gruesome gothic tales and in that respect I liked Bible stories because to me they were very gothic.

I feel this music has nurtured me as I've been immersing myself in it. I've felt supported by it.

The blues is losing someone you love and not having enough money to immerse yourself in drink.

I always tell people I'm a better swimmer because I'm a mom and a better mom because I'm swimmer.

It helps immerse yourself in what you potentially want to do. Being involved learning firsthand and observing the craft and absorbing all you can makes it easier to define what you want. It will also ultimately make you a better Chef. Culinary school or even a single class is a great bet too.

A German immersed in any civilization different from his own loses a weight equivalent in volume to the amount of intelligence he displaces.

We didn't have television until I was about eight years old so it was either the movies or radio. A lot of radio drama. That was our television you know. We had to use our imagination. So it was really those two things and the comics that I immersed myself in as a child.

Anarchy is the only slight glimmer of hope.

All in all for someone who was immersed in fascinated by and dedicated to flight I was disappointed by the wrinkle in history that had brought me along one generation late. I had missed all the great times and adventures in flight.

When you sing with a group of people you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That's one of the great feelings - to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy the great social virtue.

Fishing provides that connection with the whole living world. It gives you the opportunity of being totally immersed turning back into yourself in a good way. A form of meditation some form of communion with levels of yourself that are deeper than the ordinary self.

If this is not done future ages will certainly look back upon us as a people so immersed in the pursuit of wealth as to be blind to higher considerations.

Wikipedia is just an incredible thing. It is fact-encirclingly huge and it is idiosyncratic careful messy funny shocking and full of simmering controversies - and it is free and it is fast.

You'll know if you're a famous composer if 20 years from now your name appears on a pull-down menu in Band in a Box alongside Hans Zimmer.

I feel akin to the Platypus. An orphan in a family. A swimmer a recluse. Part bird part fish part lizard.

When I'm writing I'm trying to immerse myself in the chaos of an emotional experience rather than separate myself from it and look back at it from a distance with clarity and tell it as a story. Because that's how life is lived you know?

You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience.

Two qualities are indispensable: first an intellect that even in the darkest hour retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth and second the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.

I want to be able to look back and say 'I've done everything I can and I was successful.' I don't want to look back and say I should have done this or that. I'd like to change things for the younger generation of swimmers coming along.

I mean the beauty of being a writer is it's not like being a swimmer. When they were talking about our Olympic swimmers and they'd say 'Oh she's so old ' and she's all of 25 or something. So the beauty for a writer is that you can keep doing it right into your dotage and I hope to be able to keep doing it as long as I can get away with it yeah.

Summer is a great time to visit art museums which offer the refreshing rinse of swimming pools - only instead of cool water you immerse yourself in art.

A million words were going through my head and honestly I didn't say one of them. I wanted to let it sit simmer you know I wanted to soak it all in - the moment was amazing.