I had a ninth grade teacher who told me I was much smarter and much better than I was allowing myself to be.

Obviously, after the accident, I felt let down. Questions arose: Why me? Why was I the one to suffer? People around me started giving me looks of sympathy which made me feel worse. But then, I pulled myself together and decided to win over the disability.

I'd lied many times: to bolster my credentials, to elicit sympathy, to make myself appear less ordinary.

I've changed in my sympathies since I've become a mother myself. In high school I went through a period where I was close with my mom and had to break with her in order to find myself and come back. Since that was my experience, that's often what happens in my books.

I have a theory because I was being beaten up a lot by people outside of school, it was almost like if I could make myself sick enough they'd take sympathy on me.

Although I'm Australian, I find myself much more in sympathy with the Austrian version!

I've been asked many times if I considered myself a narcissist, so I looked up the real meaning of the word, and I came to the conclusion that indeed I am one. I think of myself as better than other people, not every person, but many, unique and talented, and I aim to success.

Success is just being happy. And I try so many different things. I do a lot of different things. Because I think God has helped me to love myself. I know who God is, and I love God.

When I write down my thoughts, they do not escape me. This action makes me remember my strength which I forget at all times. I educate myself proportionately to my captured thought. I aim only to distinguish the contradiction between my mind and nothingness.

It took more strength and hard work than I would've believed myself capable of, but with God's grace and strength, I managed to lift myself up and become a better person that I'd ever imagined - I believe I have become a loving husband, a compassionate father, and a stronger wrestler.

I have been knocked down so many times, as a player and as a person, and I have had the strength, I suppose that has come from my parents, to be able to pick myself each and every single time and go out there in the face of adversity and try my best and perform. I didn't read it up in a book. It's deep down and it's part of my family trait.

My mother at a young age put me in bilingual, so my strength is really more in Spanish. Even though I live and I was born and raised in the States, you know, in the Bronx, in Spanish I get my point across. And when I'm writing music, when I'm doing music, it's easier for me, and I know exactly how to express myself.

I gambled on having the strength to live two lives, one for myself and one for the world.

I believe that my greatest strength is a deep-rooted, unshakeable trust to never let myself give up.

You really have to look inside yourself and find your own inner strength, and say, 'I'm proud of what I am and who I am, and I'm just going to be myself.'

I see myself as a survivor, and I'm not ashamed to say I'm a survivor. To me, survivor implies strength, implies that I have been through something and I made it out the other side.

I always try to see the good in everything, and that gives me strength. Even when I lost in the London Olympics quarterfinals, I said to myself, 'Don't lose heart, God has his own plans.' Actually, life just goes on; you have to accept whatever challenge you face and become stronger.

I never won anything by myself. I was always strong because of help that gave me extra strength to win.

I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence but it comes from within. It is there all the time.

If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.

I was always very independent and looked out for myself. I think that ability really helped me in later years both in sports and in theatre.

I find interesting characters or lessons that resonate with people and sometimes I write about them in the sports pages, sometimes I write them in a column, sometimes in a novel, sometimes a play or sometimes in nonfiction. But at the core I always say to myself, 'Is there a story here? Is this something people want to read?'

When I was in Birmingham I used to go to a place called Redwood Field. I used to get there for a two o'clock game. Where can you make this kind of money playing sports? It was just a pleasure to go out and enjoy myself and get paid for it.

I learned easily and had time to follow my inclination for sports (light athletics and skiing) and chemistry, which I taught myself by reading all textbooks I could get.