Swimming is normal for me. I'm relaxed. I'm comfortable, and I know my surroundings. It's my home.
Interpretation
Swimming is a natural and comforting activity for me, akin to being at home.
In this quote, Michael Phelps expresses how swimming is not only a physical activity for him but also an emotional and mental refuge. He conveys a sense of belonging and mastery in the water, suggesting that swimming provides him relaxation and comfort, making it a significant part of his identity.
In practice
This quote can inspire someone who is anxious about competing in sports.
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.
For so long, I looked at myself as literally a kid who was talented who would go up and down the pool. That's it. Nothing else. Very few people knew who I really was.
I don't want to be the next Mark Spitz; I want to be the first Michael Phelps
There are too many kids who are drowning for lack of water safety. That's something I'd like to do. Teaching kids to live an active lifestyle.
My goal is one Olympic gold medal. Not many people in this world can say, 'I'm an Olympic gold medalist.'
I know it won't be eight medals again. If you want to compare me to that, that's your decision, not mine. I'm going out there to try to accomplish the things that I have in my mind and in my heart.
Sport is part of every man and woman's heritage and its absence can never be compensated for.
Football is beautiful. Football is beautiful because whether you win, draw, or lose, you can go and shake your opponent's hand, whether they're white or black or red or blue.
Golf challenges you mentally at any age, and when you become my age, it's a challenge physically to try to make your game work as well as it ever did. That's close to impossible, but that doesn't keep you from trying to hit the ball where you used to hit it and make the putts you used to make all the time.
We, as a wrestling community, better remember it is more than one individual that makes a winner.
If Id lived prior to the 1980s, it would have been different, because I would have been playing to prove African Americans are equal. Now, I dont necessarily feel I have to play for black people, because obviously theyre doing everything in all sports. If I can go out there and play for myself and not feel I have to stand for something other than what I want to do, thats good.
"Hit it with the back of your left hand" was the first swing thought I ever heard, brusquely bu not unlovingly put to me by the aunt-in-law who had moments before placed a golf club in my virgin grip. I was twenty-five, and had spent my youth in a cloisterd precinct of teh middle class where golf was a rumoured something, like champagne breakfasts and divorce, that the rich did.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.