I bet my life to skate, everytime. I think, that's the mission of my life. That's why I was born here. [...] I was born for my skate.

To be able to come out of that mess as I did is special. To be able to improve my relations with my dad is special. I'm happy with the way my life's going, the way I'm growing up as a person. Skating has changed me. I've had a lot of chances, and this is my time to shine.

Translation: A lot of people said to me that they were able to feel courage or happiness, for instance, when they see my performance. So, I believe that this is my motivation for skating, and that this gives me the reason to go on until the end.

I would never even think about skating with somebody else. The whole reason I wanted to come back to skating was to be close to Tessa again, and to share those moments.

I would never even think about skating with somebody else. The whole reason I wanted to come back to skating was to be close to Tessa again, and to share those moments.

Looking back, it's like, wow, those few minutes just made such an impact. We have that much time to kind of prove yourself. I think that's one thing that makes skating so exciting, because it's just intense, and it's quick, and one little slip can mean the difference between placing or not placing.

I had my dream Olympic skate [in the team event] and to me, I’ve been dreaming of that moment for such a long time, it made me feel like a superhero and superheroes save the day. And I wish I had said that we were all superheroes during the team event.

There was always just that challenge of getting better, and every year having a new goal and getting a step closer to the ultimate dream. I really didn’t have the dream of the Olympics until I was maybe in middle school. And, at that point, it started to get a little harder. My life centered around skating—training before and after school. It was a huge time commitment for me and my family.

My strength is, I’m able to really analyze myself and have that image and try to match that with the physical skating.

I really love to skate, I really love to perform. I want to skate for my fans. I never feel like a champion. I'm always a challenger.

Gonz is the most influential skater of all time, no question. Mark Gonzales created how to street skate, doing handrails and things that no one has ever done. When people were doing a boardslide on the rail and thought that was super crazy, he was doing 180 and 180 fakie 50-50s. The best and most technical skater today doing the hardest tricks beyond what anyone could think of is not doing what Gonz was doing then. It’s just not the same.

He could even think about how fast he was thinking about things.

He was full of love — for himself, first, and his prowess — such a fine power at his age. Then, he felt a degree of love for her —

There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.