Quotes from Dorothy Hamill

You see the fairy tale - four minutes of glory at the Olympics. I thought my life would be cake after that.

My whole family, my father's side, there was a great deal of depression, and my mother's side as well.

Our family life, before figure skating turned it upside down, seemed normal. Our town of Riverside, Connecticut, was part of Greenwich, and we had the advantage of their wonderful community, with great beaches and beautiful parks.

Luckily, I discovered ice skating when I was eight and a half years old. There were two wonderful ponds within walking distance of my house. After all the physical activity the summer provided, I craved movement in the cold of winter. I had no skates, so Mom stuffed socks into my brother's old ones.

Everybody has to deal with tough times. A gold medal doesn't make you immune to that. A skater is used to falling down and getting up again.

My family had a membership to the Riverside Yacht Club where my brother, Sandy, learned to sail, and I competed in local swim races. My sister, Marcia, became a competitive springboard diver, and my brother excelled in water polo.

People think skating would translate very easily to dancing, but it really doesn't. Dancing is a lot of fun and not as dangerous as being on the ice.

If you are a complete perfectionist, then the truth is that this ice skating business will drive you a little crazy!

I was passionate. I found something that I loved. I could be all alone in a big old skating rink and nobody could get near me and I didn't have to talk to anybody because of my shyness. It was great. I was in my fantasy world.

I didn't study dance. I had some ballet lessons because I needed it for posture and for my arms, mostly. My skating coach said I really needed it, from the belly button up, as opposed to the footwork. In skating, the shoes don't move.

I used to have terrible tantrums. I was temperamental when I was younger. Actually, what I needed was a swift kick in the pants. What a brat!

I was a bratty little sister. I was the youngest of three, and I often felt as though I didn't fit in.

If you don't know a lot about figure skating, it's easy to fall in love with ice dancing because it's so romantic and so theatrical.

The mind is pretty powerful. In skating, you learn to click into that zone and focus not necessarily on what you're doing but if you're doing it well.

I don't really think they saw anything in me, except the fact that I was interested in it. Some of the kids would miss a week here and miss a week there, I think they could see that I really enjoyed it.

I don't think television really captures the speed and the power of skating.

Every time you go out on the ice, there are slight flaws. You can always think of something you should have done better. These are the things you must work on.

My coach was a great politician, so he did most of the work. He was good.

My mother stopped working when she had my brother. She was a full time mom until I started getting heavily into ice skating lessons, and it got to the point where they really needed my mom to earn an income.

I never really liked my short hair; it never occurred to me that people would want it.

It took me two years to get an appointment with Mr. Suga who cut my hair for the Olympics. Who knew? I had no idea that it would be popular.

I didn't know about competition or the Olympics until Peggy Fleming won in 1968. My mother looked after all of the competition stuff. I just skated. I didn't really love competition, but that was the only way to get better. You'd see more talent.

I'm really very glad that I had skating to be my love and my escape. I think that it always gave me something that made me feel good, and it was music, and it was peaceful, and not a lot of the other stresses of life.

At times, I feel overwhelmed and my depression leads me into darkness.