MIRAI NAGASU

Narcissism is just self-confidence.

Sports is expensive, and you have to find a way to pay for it.

My parents always tell me that they never would have let me start if they had known how expensive and difficult figure skating is.

I was always getting in trouble for whispering in class.

It's been exciting to share my story for people to relate to me and reach out.

Everyone has been injured, regardless of whether they're an athlete or not.

A long time ago, a sports reporter wrote that I wasn't strong in the free-skate, that I was more of a short-program skater. And that bothered me because I work so hard every day just for a person to judge me on a couple of bad skates and deem me a bad free skater. That's absurd!

Not only would my parents work full hours, my parents both woke up at 5 A.M. My dad left the house at 5 A.M. to go to the fish market to pick out his own fish, and my mom woke up at 5 A.M. to wake me up in order to get me ready for skating before school.

When I was in middle school, I remember thinking, like, Tara Lipinski was 14: I only got a few more years to go before I'm really old.

There are always moments when I think about leaving skating, but when I think about that, I'm not very smart, and I'm not very pretty, and there's nothing else that stands out about me besides my skating.

As athletes, we want to represent our country to the best of our ability.

I think it's because I'm so hard on myself that I can push myself this far.

I get about seven hours of sleep a night.

Being 16 is such a great age because I'm still really young, and I'll still have a lot of chances. But the Olympics only come every four years, so you don't want to waste an opportunity.

Being named to the Olympic team has special meaning to it because I feel like I've come full circle.

I would like to be on 'Dancing With the Stars' because I want to be a star.

I'm very Asian, and also my mom raised me to be polite and to eat whatever is put in front of me. I actually enjoy snails a lot. And I've eaten sea urchin and that shebang.

Sports are evolving and always evolving, and people have that determination to keep going and coming back. I think I'm one of those athletes. I stand to show that people shouldn't give up. You've got to just keep going until you succeed.

Figure skaters are usually young and then just fade away. But I'm not a fade-away kind of person.

I fall a lot during training.

I started skating when I was five years old in Pasadena, California.

I used to skate around the rink with my mom, and we used to race each other until I started getting way better. Then she hung up her skates and resorted to playing my music at the rink.

When I'm at home, I'm a real big cuddler, so I sleep with my dog in my arms.

Japanese people, they're not really one to complain.

I think, as a skater, I started out really strongly, and as I have grown in the public eye, I have had my rough seasons that most people don't get as much attention for.