Shawn Johnson Quotes

As long as you've done your best, making mistakes doesn't matter. You and I are human; we will mess up. What counts is learning from your mistakes and getting back up when life has knocked you down.

Stay strong. Stand up. Have a voice.

I have a chaperone everywhere I go - my mom.

My approach to gymnastics in Beijing was heavily based on the amount of difficulty I could do.

I still can't believe I'm an Olympic athlete.

In 2008 I didn't take it all in enough. I was so wrapped up in just the competition that I missed what was going on around me. If I am given that opportunity again to go to the Olympics and be an athlete I want to take it all in because I feel like this is my last shot and I want to feel the team spirit. I want to really live and breathe the USA.

Gymnastics taught me everything - life lessons, responsibility and discipline and respect.

The body is an amazing machine... If you eat the right things your body will perform incredibly well!

To have any doubt in your body is the biggest weakness an athlete can have. There are times when I physically can't get myself to go for a skill because I'm thinking, 'My knee hurts really bad.'

Image isn't everything, It's what comes from your heart, and what you learn and what you say and how you act that means more than anything.

I don't call them sacrifices. I call them exchanges.

I had surgery to repair the ACL in February 2010 and was back in the gym by June, but rushed things too quickly and ended up re-tearing my MCL in September.

I pay attention to my diet to be a healthier gymnast, but I'm not obsessive over it.

Everything for me started with my love of the sport. In society we're losing the fun with kids and pushing success on them too hard. Success comes from fun.

I don't think I've ever not gotten nervous. When you work so hard for one special day or routine, you want to perform it better than you ever have. We always say at our gym, If you lose the nerves, you lose the sport.

I started from zero and went back to the basics in gymnastics.

To have any doubt in your body is the biggest weakness an athlete can have.

Everything is about your movements and precision and timing, which is what gymnastics is about.

Don't force anything. Find what you love and stick with it.

I love lean meats like chicken, turkey. I'm obsessed with sushi and fish in general. I eat a lot of veggies and hummus.

I was at the Olympic Games winning medals and I still doubted my image. I doubted what I looked like. That's sad.

I think it's important for girls at a young age to be involved in as many things as possible. Especially safe communities of people that teach them great life lessons like self-confidence and courage. And getting girls to go to camp especially in the summer where they can meet new friends, learn new things, and not just sit at home and watch TV.

Injury taught me I need to learn how to face challenges.

Gymnastics is not only a good thing to live by, but it is important to understand how it does help you in life.

Well-I don't know if anyone would really ask me to prom.

Something my mom taught me when I was little is that everything happens for a reason. Retiring was scary and it was tough to give up gymnastics, but so many great opportunities have come from it that I never expected. And those wouldn't have happened had I not accepted my injury as a way to try something new.

Gymnastics has made me strong. I feel like it broke me down to my lowest point, but at the same time, it has given me the greatest strength anyone could ask for.

It might have been easier to retire, to say my knee couldn't handle it and let that be that. At the same time, the prospect of not being able to compete in gymnastics anymore was heartbreaking.

When I was younger, my coach, Liang Chow, made all the decisions. I would go to the gym for practice, do exactly what Chow told me to do, go home, come back and start all over again. If Chow told me to do 50 squat jumps, I did 50 squat jumps.

If you lose the nerves, you lose the sport.

I set my phone with motivational quotes to go off on random days and times. Like, 'You're stronger than you think you are.' I'll forget about it, then one will pop up and it'll give me a little boost.

I told myself after 2008 that I was done for good. But they say you can't keep a gymnast away from her sport.

To finish off this whole Olympics by finally getting the gold medal, it's the best feeling in the world.

Of course, when you're training your whole life to get to the Olympics, you train for gold.

I think about my goals. There were a lot of times in gymnastics when I really didn't want to go in and train, but you can't make it to the Olympics if you don't train!

My other life keeps me calm and grounded and normal.

I'm trying to stay as calm as possible and focus one day at a time, but when reality sets in, I feel everything: anxiety, excitement, nerves, pressure and joy.

I fell in love with gymnastics. I love what I do now. I work with people that I love to be around. Success comes from that.

In some ways the ACL tear was a blessing. I had hesitated to return to elite gymnastics after the 2008 Olympics. I told myself I had already accomplished so much, and the road was just going to get harder if I continued.

A comeback in gymnastics is almost impossible in itself.

People put too much emphasis on looks.

I was able to do Classics, the U.S. national championships and the Pan American Games and feel like I improved with each meet, but I was still struggling with a lot of residual pain from the two surgeries.

People only see gymnastics on TV and in the Olympics at such an extreme. So it can be intimidating.

My coach, Liang Chow, had one rule while I was training for the 2008 Olympics: no skiing. I could do anything I wanted outside the gym, he said, except ski.

After 13 years of hard landings in gymnastics, one ski run had delivered the biggest injury of my career.

I have a healthy lifestyle, but there's nothing you can really do to prevent from rolling an ankle or something like that.

I'm doing four hours of gymnastics training a day, six days a week and then an extra two to three hours in a fitness center as well.

Gymnastics is so complex.

I had a constant fear, a constant little doubt in my mind: 'OK, I'm getting ready to do my standing back full on beam and I might re-tear my ACL.'

There's always a chance. Anything can happen.