Dorothy Hamill

“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 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 hated to read. My mother could not get me to read. I'm going through the same thing with my daughter now. I love to read now, but I don't remember reading.”

“I was always falling in and out of love. I was engaged when I was 16 to the first guy I ever dated, but my father told him I was too young.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Luckily, I discovered ice skating when I was eight and a half years old. There were two wonderful ponds within walking distance of my house. After all the physical activity the summer provided, I craved movement in the cold of winter. I had no skates, so Mom stuffed socks into my brother's old ones.”

“When I was growing up, there were very few women athletes. I remember watching Olga Corbett, but Peggy Fleming and Janet Lynn were my role models. I never dreamt that I could be at that level. I remember thinking they seemed so elegant and regal and powerful and feminine.”

“Every time you go out on the ice, there are slight flaws. You can always think of something you should have done better. These are the things you must work on.”

“I think Princess Diana probably had the most famous haircut, or Farrah Fawcett or Jennifer Aniston.”

“I'm really very glad that I had skating to be my love and my escape. I think that it always gave me something that made me feel good, and it was music, and it was peaceful, and not a lot of the other stresses of life.”

“My mother stopped working when she had my brother. She was a full time mom until I started getting heavily into ice skating lessons, and it got to the point where they really needed my mom to earn an income.”

“There were no competitions on television. The first skating competition I ever remember seeing on television was the 1968 Olympics when Peggy Fleming won.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I don't think television really captures the speed and the power of skating.”

“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.”

“My family had a membership to the Riverside Yacht Club where my brother, Sandy, learned to sail, and I competed in local swim races. My sister, Marcia, became a competitive springboard diver, and my brother excelled in water polo.”

“You see the fairy tale - four minutes of glory at the Olympics. I thought my life would be cake after that.”

“I was just ice skating. I had no concept of that. In those days you couldn't see the judges. I was this little person on the ice and they were just people that would stand around the boards.”