Quotes About Expectations

I pretty much knew that I was going to come in fourth, but then I said, 'I'm fourth at the Olympic Games. What are you talking about? Why is that disappointing?'

I came back from the Olympic Games, and straightaway, I'm this role model. So that means I can't mess around with my mates like I used to because, if I do, people are going to use it to knock me down.

The Olympics are an emotional roller-coaster. You cant be too disappointed with results because things dont always go your way.

There's way more pressure cooking for cooks than rowing at the Olympics.

Winning the Olympics was an amazing feeling, but afterwards, it was a bit like, 'What do I do now?' So I lost a bit of motivation going back into training and competitions; I had so much pressure on me. I kept thinking, 'I'm the Olympic champion. I can't lose' - being only 19 and having to deal with all that pressure.

I didn't realize that winning the Olympics at age 14 automatically put me in the category of being a celebrity.

It eventually ends, and that's what I think a lot of athletes forget. It's 10 years after the Olympics, and you won the Olympics, and that's great, but no one cares.

The more I think about the Olympics, even from afar, its mere concept stuns me. I can't think of any other line of work where, every four years, people gather to be ranked one, two, and three, then are more or less told to evaporate until the next go-around.

You ask any Olympian what the year after the Olympics is like - you always get the Olympic blues.

I have always said the Olympics was a great grounding for me, to have that pressure on top of me, the whole nation watching you in my own country.

I got to be calm, but I mean, it's the Olympics. Anybody wants to go out and do their best, so it's definitely a different kind of pressure.

The Olympics should be something so special, but I feel like it was definitely miserable at times.

It's very important for me to focus on myself, on the job I have to do on and off the track with the engineers without really thinking about what people expect of me off the track.

You have to be prepared for situations on and off the field, and everything that happens within the world of football. It's difficult for players at big clubs to deal with these things.

Just because two guys are homosexual and happen to be the only two homosexuals on-screen doesn't mean they're going to be like, 'Oh yeah, let's get together!' It doesn't always happen like that.

If I wore a mini-skirt then it would become such a big deal, if I kissed on-screen then it was bold, it was glamorous but if the top actresses did it then no one would even discuss it. So I was like why do I have this sexy, wild and glamorous image?

Once you feel like you're being dictated by other people's expectations, it usually backfires.

You can't keep going back to Detroit because you're big in Detroit. You can go maybe once a year and sell it out because everybody loves you and looks forward to seeing you again. You can't go back twice in the same year.

I know one day I'll be considered too old.

You dream about the Olympics for so long and you have that one day, then it's over, and when you don't run well there is this huge letdown. It took me years to deal with that. I feel like I almost had to cleanse myself of that experience.

I would play like one minute or not even get in at all. I'd see on Twitter - people would say, 'I hate that Grayson Allen guy at the end of the bench.' I'm like, 'What did I do?! I was in the game for 30 seconds.'

Robotics has been around forever, and it's been the next big thing forever, and it is so exciting and compelling that it's easy to get carried away. People almost always do, and that's one of the things that has held back the industry.

One of the things I learned from my father, and it did not serve me well at all, was that he was a successful writer, he earned a living. And it was a shock for me to find out that it was actually hard to make a living as a writer.

The desire to avoid meltdowns actually is one of the things that screws up live-action films.