Quotes from Mikaela Shiffrin

I like it when hard work pays off.

I can't really picture a time when she won't be on tour with me. Mom has always been my best friend. But, yes, eventually she might get sick of it.

Sometimes I feel surrounded by this dark cloud, and it feels like I can't breathe. It's nervousness and I don't know what else.

I do doubles on Monday and Thursday, take Wednesday off or do easy cardio, do doubles on Thursday and Friday, and the weekend I just get outside and get active - jog or bike ride, or play tennis with my mom.

Some sports, you see some athletes just walking around the gym not really doing anything, eating food. They're first to the lunchroom, never lifting weights.

I have never limited myself by focusing much on being a 'normal' teenager.

I don't really have time or interest in doing a lot of the crazy things that some of my teenage peers do, mostly because I have such a hectic life that I don't need to add to that chaos by creating my own teenage drama like a lot of teenagers do.

During the season, one of the most important things to eat is the carbs. Protein's really important, too, but it's the carbs that are important because I have to consistently refuel for the next day.

Whether it's learning to hit a backhand in tennis, learning high school chemistry, or getting better at ski racing, I really believe with hard work and analytic preparation, you can skip a few steps and find the faster way.

I have to constantly keep pushing myself.

You can't ever make the perfect run, but you can make the best run, and then you clock the fastest time, and that's a win.

I have all these things I want to do, but I don't have to do them right away. Because it's not just about winning, it's about succeeding, which to me are two different things.

I don't know what the point of life is, but I'm certain that five gold medals is not it.

Pasta is my superfood! Balance and moderation are the basis for my diet, though, so I also make sure to incorporate plenty of protein, fruits, and veggies throughout the day.

If I hadn't come East as a kid, I might still be a World Cup racer today, but I wouldn't be the same World Cup racer.

I was lucky enough that my parents knew about World Cup skiing, so since I was really little, we were watching World Cup winning runs.

I've had a lot of people tell me, 'Yeah, sure, you're good at slalom, but wait till you get to the real events like downhill or super-G.' I don't like hearing that.

Drama holds you back.

'Don't worry about it, and you'll be great,' said nobody, ever.

If you strive toward the perfect run, accepting that you will always come up short of that is very intriguing. It makes me think about how in life in general, we always want to strive toward perfection, but sometimes perfection would be the worst thing.

I always practice, even on the cat tracks or in those interstitial periods. My dad says, 'Even when you're just stopping, be sure to do it right, maintaining a good position, with counter-rotational force.' These are the kinds of things my dad says, and I'm like, 'Shut up.'

In the end, I want to be an inspiration to somebody.

Here's the thing. You can't get ten thousand hours of skiing. You spend so much time on the chairlift. My coach did a calculation of how many hours I've been on snow. We'd been overestimating. I think we came up with something like eleven total hours of skiing on snow a year. It's, like, seven minutes a day.

I just - I fell in love with the sport when I started to ski gates. Once I was allowed to start training gates around 6 years old, then I really fell in love with it.