Simone Biles

“I knew the backlash I would face. I worried about being cancelled,”

“The world doesn’t need you to be perfect,”

“It needs you to be bold, to care and to keep going even when things don’t go as planned.”

“But I also knew one thing – I wasn’t letting myself down.”

“I feel like if you ask me next year, maybe, I’d be like, ‘Oh, I miss that.’ But it’s crazy because I don’t get up every day and think like, ‘Oh, I wish I could flip.’ I flipped for 22 years of my life, so being right side up is kind of nice.”

“There’s such high expectations on me that I’m supposed to win, so whenever I do win or get whatever medal that is, I feel relief off my shoulder like, ‘I did it. I’m done. Let’s move on to the next,’”

“Whenever I see somebody else accomplish it, I feel like that’s the excitement I get because I’ve seen the hours and I wish I could celebrate myself like that,”

“A couple years ago, I didn't think I'd be back here, so competing and walking away with four medals, I'm not mad at it. I'm pretty proud of myself.”

“I'm doing what I love and enjoying it, so that's all that matters to me.”

“We’ve been able to take care of our hair better and take care of our beauty routines better, because it’s self-taught,”

“I understand and realize I have to take care of my physical appearance as well as my mental,”

“He always says, ‘Smile like you’re the best out there. Nobody can do it like you. You have to trust your training [and] trust your process,’”

“I’m finally learning to love my hair and the texture that I have and the styles that I can do,”

“But I won’t be able to do my career forever.”

“I'm making a bigger effort to take care of my mind and my body, which includes therapy once a week. Thursdays are my therapeutic days, a moment for myself,”

“I woke up singing BossMan Dlow’s ‘Talk my S—‘”

“My parents and coaches kept their focus on making sure I was having fun,”

“I’m so happy that I was in the stands and not competing because it takes a mental toll on you as well as a physical toll,”

“They weren't afraid about our success or what USA Gymnastics is gonna look like. They're all just out there trying to make a name for themselves, to perform well, to get their name out there so that they can get more assignments and hopefully make Worlds later this year.”

“It was exciting to see all of those girls come out from a year that was so heightened by the Olympics,”

“We were always really big on Sunday dinner and all this stuff,”

“If you ask [coaches] Cécile and Laurent [Landi], they would definitely be like, ‘We saw her set so many boundaries and that was in her personal life,’”

“There was always a part of me that thought what if?”

“She encourages me and never lets me feel down about something for too long.”

“My heart aches for everyone involved, especially for the victims and their families,”

“There is nothing that I can say that will heal anyone’s pain, but I do want to express my sincere condolences to everyone affected by this terrible tragedy.”

“The gym sent home a letter requesting that I join tumbling or gymnastics.”

“While there I imitated the other gymnasts, and Coach Ronnie noticed,”

“Obviously, it wasn’t my best performance, but at the end of the day, whoever medaled, medaled, and that’s what’s so exciting, because you just never know, it’s gymnastics,”

“People will have to talk, have Twitter fingers, whatever,”

“But for somebody else, I’m like, ‘Wooo! Let’s go!’”

“When it’s something for somebody else, I know and I see the hard work that they put it,”

“Simone definitely pushes me a lot,”

“Honestly, I would have had to Google that,”

“I feel like we all have more to give.”

“I don’t want my extensions falling out or this that [and] the other,”

“We can all go to her for braids.”

“We don’t get to bring a makeup artist or a hairstylist.”

“I never thought about my hair like the way other people see it,”

“She’s the [hair] braider on the team,”

“When we put it together, we got everything we need,”

“This is definitely our redemption tour,”

“I never thought I'd step foot on the gymnastics floor again just because of everything that had happened,”

“But with the help of [coaches] Cecile and Laurent [Landi], I got back in the gym and worked really hard, mentally and physically.”