Bill Toomey Quotes

I played professional level sports. When you're playing for money, it's a whole other level.

Not playing off of an audience is very challenging.

But Pete had the desire to play at the highest level for so many years. That is very difficult, mentally.

As a child, I wanted to be an athlete, a professional tennis player or something like that.

I had already been into my professional career for six years and had not won an individual gold medal at the Olympics. There was a tremendous amount of pressure going into 1996 to get it done.

You feel quite distant by playing at huge stadiums year after year, where you only can see a great darkness in front of you.

I worked hard in gymnastics since the time I was six years old until I retired at 23 years of age.

As a child I wanted to be a professional athlete or lawyer.

I am a sportsman and not a politician. I am a sportsman and will always remain one. I am not going to enter politics giving up cricket, which is my life. I will continue to play cricket.

I've performed solo for 20 years now, but I don't do much of it, because if you only play alone, you go crazy and out of tune and play foolish music.

I would love to be a professional athlete. When I was living in Mexico as a teenager, I did seven years of gymnastics and went to the Junior Olympics. I was getting to the level of going to the international competitions, but I was only 14, and my parents were really worried because they did not want that to be my life.

That's a part that's always a challenge for athletes: trying to keep the passion alive while knowing it's still your job. There's no question that at some point, probably sooner rather than later, I'll be pretty burned out. And when that time comes, then I'll take a step back and take a look at it and see if I want to keep going.

The ultimate would be to compete in a couple more Olympics, hopefully break some world records and wind up my sports career with a couple of years in the WNBA.

Headlining can be sort of solitary - you're sort of on your own out there, and you start to feel for a change.

When I'm in the studio, I like to be in there by myself because if I'm in the mike room, and I look out and see people talking, or they're not nodding their head or rocking to the music, it makes me feel like it don't sound good, or I'll be scared to really open up vocally because I might mess up, and they might be in there laughing.

I hate going into the audition room. I find it the most nerve-wracking, inhumane experience, and I think it's such an inhospitable environment to give an honest account of the character and, I guess, your ability.

I didn't pick up a ball for three years. It was very depressing for me because, as a professional, it's very difficult when you can't use the facilities, play cricket; you can't even touch the ball, so what are you going to do then?

It's either join the workforce or become a professional athlete, and I'd rather be a pro athlete.

I played professional tennis for about six years and I played football and handball in school as well.

You have to forget you are playing against your idol, because the guy on the other side also wants to play better than you and beat you. I don't think you should allow yourself to think like this when you go against any player.

Yeah, my first season playing varsity, that was probably the last season I got nervous for. I was kind of nervous for that one.

Playing in an empty stadium won't faze me at all.

I've always dreamed of being a professional athlete.

Now that I'm doing all these big competitions, I've learned to control my nerves and control my mindset, and I think that's where the maturity comes in.

Being able to play at club level at a high level and then getting called into the national team, it's amazing.