Quotes from Lynn Sherr

Sports taught me that I can make a mistake one minute, let it go, and be brilliant the next.

I've discovered that half the people would love to go into space, and there's no need to explain it to them. The other half can't understand, and I couldn't explain it to them. If someone doesn't know why, I can't explain it.

Swimming is my salvation. Ask me in the middle of winter, or at the end of a grueling day, or after a long stretch at the computer, where I'd most like to be, and the answer is always the same: in the water, gliding weightless, slicing a silent trail through whatever patch of blue I can find.

Even the suggestion of swimming be stirring. Watch a swimmer pass a building with a pool: the whiff of chlorine produces a wistful smile. Sit with swimmers when a TV commercial shows someone in the water: they actually stop and watch.

Buoyancy also lifts the ego when other body parts start to droop. Curvy people float better than lean beans, and women more than men, because even at our slimmest, we have an extra layer of fat distributed throughout our bodies.

For the woman who swelters in her kitchen or lolls in a drawing room, for the man who sits half his life in an office chair, an occasional swim does as much good as six months' vacation. That weary feeling goes away for once in the cool, quiet water. Tired men and tired women forget that stocks and cakes have fallen.

Curvy people float better than lean beans, and women more than men, because even at our slimmest, we have an extra layer of fat distributed throughout our bodies.

She took full advantage of the ever-widening definition of woman's place and spent much of her life making sure it was everywhere. That she could not, or would not openly identify herself as a gay woman, reflects not only her intense need for privacy, but the shame and fear that an intolerant society can inflict even on its heroes.

We shared a healthy disregard for the overblown egos and conservative intransigence of both our professions