My mom put me and my sisters in the water to feel comfortable, to have water safety.

I live a pretty conservative life, so I probably really haven’t done anything crazy.

Yeah, my friends call me Mike, Michael or just my last name.

I love to race the best people in the world and the fastest people in the world.

Swimming is fun. It’s a lot funner than golf.

But a hero should be somebody who can lift up other people with his courage and dedication.

Every day after I wake up, I think, ‘Wait... this can’t be real; I’m still going to wake up.

I want to change the sport of swimming. I want people to talk about it, think about it, and look forward to seeing it. I want them to want to jump in and do it. That’s my goal.” After.

You’re tired; you feel you can’t move; you’re truly hurting. That’s when he would throw down especially hard sets.

You can make a million mistakes, just not the same one twice.

We wanted to see how close we could get to the world record. We’ll take that for right now.

So, you know, if, if I wanted to get up and just play golf one day, I would just get up and play golf. If I wanted to go to Vegas, I would just get up and go to Vegas.

I consider myself normal. I’ve spent 20 years in the pool. I consider that something that’s normal.

I think the biggest things I am looking forward to is getting new faces into the sport. Getting kids who could be afraid of water to feel comfortable in the pool.

This is the first medal I’ve ever won in an international meet. For it to be gold is incredible. It feels great. I can’t explain it.

I’ve been able to get an excitement back in the water.

There is a one woman in China that claimed she paid $50 to get my e-mail address. It was pretty shocking. I got one this morning from Scotland. A girl’s requesting a signed photo of me.

I see my goals as personal and I always have. That’s just been how I’ve worked.

I learned how fast you can go from being an international hero to being a reference in a joke on a late night talk show.