Quotes About Youth

Growing up, I was a water baby. We lived near a lake, had a pool in our backyard, and as soon as I was old enough, I joined a swim team. By 10, I was winning local events.

I had a lot of ear infections when I was younger, so I didn't learn to swim until I was about 14.

I didn't just swim when I was younger. I did ballet, horse riding, everything. I was very active.

Coming from a barely clothed childhood as a swimmer makes me really comfortable with my body.

I was a better basketball player growing up in high school than I was a swimmer. Basketball to this day is my favorite sport.

I was an avid swimmer and was state champ at age 12.

In Athens I was 17 and I didn't have any expectations. I was just swimming fast and racing everybody. I didn't have the joy after my races in 2007. I didn't want to go to Beijing. I had to for sponsors.

People were going to geometry class and I was swimming through vats of chili on 'Even Stevens.' It was like a dream!

As a 17-year-old kid, people put you on this podium, and it seems like you're just a source of entertainment for people. I felt like I was swimming for other people and they'd never be satisfied.

I was 15, and the years of hard swimming had packed muscle on my frame and made me very strong. Not as strong as a football player, but strong enough to inflict heavy damage.

I grew up in Florida, so you start swimming at the age of 1, really. By 10, I was competitive swimming, and by 12, I had aspirations to be the best in the world.

I was a kid that grew up in the South and was always outdoors fishing and hunting and, you know, swimming in the pool during the summer.

There are a lot of young swimming fans that are on Instagram, so I try to respond or post things that they like.

I was always a very competitive little kid. I did swimming very competitively, downhill skiing very competitively. Everything was competition.

Swimming, trekking, outdoor sports activities have been a part of life right from childhood through youth.

My first-ever job was when I was 14 or 15 in Washington, D.C., a job that I got through Marion Barry's summer-youth-employment program. It was working in the locker room of a public swimming pool, deep inside Anacostia in Southeast D.C., about five to 10 minutes from my house.

I'm sure, ever since I was really young, that happiness is not a bottle of champagne and a girl and a limousine and a swimming pool.

You feel like a stud out there when people swing and miss. As I've gotten older, I've preached to our young guys that strikeouts are sexy, but outs are outs, man, no matter how you get them. It's a lot cooler for me pitching in the seventh or eighth inning than it is going 5 1/3. Your manager likes it a lot more, too.

I'm coaching 'swing at this, don't swing at that,' and in the middle of it, a kid looks at me and says, 'Coach, I think I'm going to fail history.' Or maybe their girlfriend just dumped them. These are kids, and once I embraced that, this became a lot more fun.

When I was 16 or 17 I heard the Count Basie band with Jo Jones and Lester Young and Herschel Evans and I couldn't believe it. They were the greatest swing band. I really fell in love with that sound. Everybody danced!

When I went to high school, in the late 1970s, disco was in full swing and anyone who was into it dressed the part. I know I did.

No matter what you do, people are gonna try to emulate you. Whether it's a dunk by Michael Jordan or a swing by Ken Griffey Jr., kids are doing the same things.

What's amazing is how rock n' roll lasted. It started losing its commercial power in the late 1990s. But think of swing, which we think of as this big music before rock n' roll. It only lasted five years in total. So, rock going 50 years is amazing, because young people want new things.

I wasn't the most talented player as a kid. Whenever I look back at the old footage, I didn't swing it very well and I didn't strike it pretty well, but I managed to score pretty well.