DOROTHY HAMILL

I always had the sense that nothing was never good enough - striving for perfection. My mother and I had a sort of typical mother-daughter relationship.

Money is evil.

If you don't know a lot about figure skating, it's easy to fall in love with ice dancing because it's so romantic and so theatrical.

At times, I feel overwhelmed and my depression leads me into darkness.

My parents didn't have a lot of money, but we never knew that. They really did the best they could.

In my teen years leading up to the Olympics, I loved having the excuse to skip out on parties because of skating. Partying wasn't my thing anyway. Mostly I hung out with other skaters. We were all buddies, so it's not like I missed out on socializing. I was really enjoying myself.

People think skating would translate very easily to dancing, but it really doesn't. Dancing is a lot of fun and not as dangerous as being on the ice.

I wanted to learn how to skate backwards and they wouldn't help me and they went off and left me on my own.

A lot of people who have depression understand that the last thing in the world you want to do when you're feeling that way is get up and exercise. It's virtually impossible to do that. It's like somebody beating you.

One naively thinks that by winning the Olympics, it's going to be this switch, and then your life is going to be perfect, and that's not reality.

It took me two years to get an appointment with Mr. Suga who cut my hair for the Olympics. Who knew? I had no idea that it would be popular.

I always had short hair, and I hated my short hair. I was always mistaken for a boy, but my mom wouldn't let me change my hair because she was always chasing me around with a hairbrush, and it was always tangled, so she just would cut it off, and she's right: short hair did suit me.

My whole family, my father's side, there was a great deal of depression, and my mother's side as well.

Everybody has to deal with tough times. A gold medal doesn't make you immune to that. A skater is used to falling down and getting up again.

I didn't know about competition or the Olympics until Peggy Fleming won in 1968. My mother looked after all of the competition stuff. I just skated. I didn't really love competition, but that was the only way to get better. You'd see more talent.

I'm certainly not a perfect mother, but I'm trying to be what my mother wasn't for me. My mother's battled depression, so I understand it now as a parent, some of the things that she must have been going through.

If I hadn't been born a woman, I would have certainly been gay.

I wouldn't say that there's ever been an Olympic champion that didn't deserve to win an Olympic Gold Medal.

I never really liked my short hair; it never occurred to me that people would want it.

In group lesson number six I think we learned how to turn backwards and then just kind of wiggle. That wasn't really skating backward, but I guess I was going in the right direction.

I was really a spoiled brat when I was a kid skating. Meals are cooked for you, you are driven to the rink, they make costumes for you. Your parents sit around and watch admiringly while you skate. You don't have to think about anything but skating. You're just plain spoiled.

I used to have terrible tantrums. I was temperamental when I was younger. Actually, what I needed was a swift kick in the pants. What a brat!

They're still considered Olympic eligibles, so there's never an issue whether they're going to turn pro or not. When they get to that level, money is never an issue. They make so much money now.

The mind is pretty powerful. In skating, you learn to click into that zone and focus not necessarily on what you're doing but if you're doing it well.

Our family life, before figure skating turned it upside down, seemed normal. Our town of Riverside, Connecticut, was part of Greenwich, and we had the advantage of their wonderful community, with great beaches and beautiful parks.