Simone Biles Quotes

I'd rather regret the risk that didn't work out than the chances I didn't take at all.

I was built this way for a reason, so I'm going to use it.

I would hope I would inspire kids everywhere to know that you can do anything you put your mind to.

There’s no better team than Team USA!

We have to protect our mind and our body, rather than just go out there and do what the world wants us to do.

I'd rather regret the risks that didn't work out than the chances I didn't take at all.

The unexpected is usually what brings the unbelievable." --Mandy Kellogg Rye, Writer

You will not always be strong, but you can always be brave.

It hurts my heart that doing what I love has been kind of taken away from me to please other people. I wanted it to be for myself. But I was still doing it for other people

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I was glad to put the whole thing behind me, because I wanted every child, regardless of race, to be able to look at my Worlds win and say, I can dream big too. I wanted them to know that following your dreams—not just in gymnastics, but in everything—shouldn’t have anything to do with the color of your skin. It should only be about finding the discipline and the courage to do the hard work.

Maybe it's good we don't know what will happen next in our stories, because if we did, we might not turn the page. Or we might skip ahead and never experience the good that comes out of the hard moment we're living through

I wasn’t thinking about our deal either when I got selected for the Worlds team. Being chosen to compete had been a jaw-dropping moment for me. But now I was riding a wave of excitement and fear. I’d be one of five girls carrying the banner for my country. Could I handle the pressure? I knew this was my test. I’d have to find a way to manage everyone’s expectations in order to keep them from making me feel overwhelmed. I needed to learn how to carry those expectations lightly—like a turtle carries its shell.

I wasn’t born a Texas girl. In fact, before I called my parents Momma and Poppa Biles, I knew them as Grandma and Grandpa. Actually, I first called them “Hamma” and “Hampaw” because I was only three years old and couldn’t enunciate my gs. Hampaw was a tall, medium-brown man with a salt-and-pepper goatee, and Hamma was a short, light brown woman with soft, curly hair.

Most important, my mind was in the game—I was determined not to fail level seven a second time. I’m not sure what was going on with me the first time, except I’ve noticed that, sometimes, when we’re zooming along and it’s all blue skies, we can suddenly hit a bump in the road. That’s tough, but it can also force us to slow down and reassess what we want, where we’re going—and just how hard we might need to work to get there.

As I watched each member of my class take a turn at the altar, I thought about the patron saint I’d chosen as my own the week before, when the bishop interviewed me to assess my spiritual readiness. St. Sebastian had been named the patron saint of athletes and soldiers, because he’d been forced to endure extreme physical trials in his life but was able to heal quickly from his injuries. He’s known as the saint who keeps athletes safe and healthy, which is exactly what I needed at the time. I was actually healing from an injury.

Sahici aşk, iki ayrı özgürlüğün karşılıklı tanınması temeline oturmak zorundadır; seven kadın da, erkek de, o zaman, hem kendi varlığını, hem de karşısındakinin varlığını duyacaktır: hiçbiri aşkınlığından vazgeçmeyecek, kendi varlığını sakatlamayacaktır; ikisi de, üzerinde yaşadıkları dünyada, birtakım değerler ve erekler bulup ortaya çıkaracaklardır. Her ikisi için de aşk, kendini verişte benliğini tanımak, evreni zenginleştirmek biçimine girecektir. Gerorge Gusdorf, la Connaissance de Soi ( İnsanın kendini tanıması) adlı yapıtında, erkeklerin aşktan, sevgiden beklediğini pek güzel özetlemektedir. Aşk, bizi bizden, dar kalıbımızdan kurtararak kendi benliğimizi gösterir bize. Bize yabancı olan ve bizi tamamlayan varlıkla ilinti kurduğumuz an kendimizi olumlarız. Bir bilgi türü olan sevgi, nicedir içinde yaşadığımız görünüme bile yeni nitelikler kazandırır, önümüzde yeni gökler, yeni topraklar açılır. İşin en büyük sırrı da buradadır zaten: dünya bir başka varlıktır, ben de bir başka varlık’ım. Ve sevdiğim an, bunu bilen tek kişi olmaktan çıkarım. Daha da ileri giderek, bunu bana öğretenin işte bu ikinci kişi, (sevdiğim yabancı varlık) olduğunu söyleyebiliriz. Öyleyse, kadın erkeğin kendi varlığının bilincine varmasında en önemli rolü oynamaktadır. Bir delikanlı için aşk konusunda çıraklık etmenin önemi de işte buradan gelmektedir: Stendhal’ın, Malraux’un “ben de bir başka varlık’ım” dedikleri anda duydukları engin zevki hepimiz biliyoruz. Ancak, Gusdorf, şu satırları yazarken haksızdır: “aynı şekilde, erkek de, kadın için, kendi varlığını tanımada kullanacağı vazgeçilmez bir aracıdır”, çünkü, bugün erkeğin durumu kadınınkinin aynı değildir; sevgi ilişkisinde erkek başka bir görünüşte ortaya çıkmakta, bu yeni görünüş de kişiliğine katılmakta, ama temek bir varlığı aynı kalmaktadır. Kadın da onun gibi kendisi için var olan bir varlık olabilseydi, sevgiden aynı yararı sağlayabilecekti; bu ise, onun iktisadi açıdan bağımsız olmasını, kendine özgü birtakım erekleri bulunmasını ve kimsenin aracılığı olmadan, kendisi, topluluk yönünde aşabilmesini gerektirir. …… Erkekler, istek üzerine, sevginin, kasın için en yüce bütünleniş olduğunu ileri sürmüşlerdir. Nietzsche: “Kadın olarak seven bir kadın, bu sevginin yardımıyla, çok daha derinlemesine kadınlaşır” demiş. ….. Kadın, güçsüzlüğü değil, güçlülüğü içinde; kendinden kaçmak değil, kendini bulabilmek; var olmaktan istifa etmek değil, varlığını olumlamak üzere sevebildiği gün, aşk, hem onun hem de erkek için korkunç bir tehlike olmaktan çıkıp bir yaşam kaynağı haline gelecektir. ….. Erkek titiz bir iyi niyete sahipse, evli ya da sevdalı çiftlerde, karşılıklı bir cömertlik içinde, tam bir eşitliğe kavuşmak mümkün olmaktadır. …..

Good night, Grandma!” I called as I was skipping out of the kitchen with Adria on my heels. Grandma, who was at the sink rinsing dishes to stack in the dishwasher, stopped and looked at us. She had a funny expression on her face, which made Adria and me pause in the doorway and look back at her, waiting. Grandma wiped her hands on a dishtowel and said, “Simone, Adria, come here.” There was something different in her tone. I didn’t know what to expect “You know, girls,” she said as we stood in front of her, “we adopted you both today. So I’m your mother now, and he”—she pointed at my grandpa, who was wiping the table mats—“he’s your father.” Grandpa paused what he was doing, stood up straight, and smiled. I just glanced from one to the other, my eyes big and round. What had happened in court that day suddenly became clear. “Does that mean I can call you Mom and Dad?” I asked. “It’s up to you,” my grandma said, one hand cupping my cheek, the other one smoothing Adria’s hair. “Call us whatever you want to. Now go to bed.” The two of us scampered upstairs without another word. But when Adria went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, I stood in the middle of our bedroom, my hands pressed against my temples. I was hopping from one foot to the other and jumping up and down, so much excitement was flowing through me. Mom. Dad. Mom. Dad. I kept whispering the words, getting used to the sound of them. Finally, feeling as if I would burst, I ran back downstairs to the kitchen. “Mom?” I said, standing in the doorway. She looked across at me, her lips twitching like she was trying not to smile. “Yes, Simone?” I turned to where Grandpa was putting away the table mats. “Dad?” “What is it, Simone?” “Nothing!” I said, squealing and bouncing up and down gleefully. I had done it—I’d called them Mom and Dad! I turned without another word and raced back up the stairs. In my room, I flopped backward onto my bed and let out a happy sigh. Adria and I were finally and forever home.

As I stepped off the mat, Aimee ran over and gave me a hug. Lexie rushed up to me, face beaming, and said, “Hey, you caught your Thatchev!” “I did!” I said, high-fiving her. “Thank you!” Everyone else was looking at us, completely puzzled. They were probably wondering, Why on earth is she so excited? She just fell off the bars twice! But I didn’t care right then. I’d caught my Thatchev, and I was on my way to Nationals. One month later, it wouldn’t be the Thatchev that would put me out of contention for the USA women’s junior team by just one spot—it would be that dang Amanar. Maybe if I’d spent more time practicing the vault, I might’ve gotten picked. But the same thing that’s true in gymnastics is also true in life: You can’t go back. The best you can do is forgive yourself, take a deep breath, and get to work on the next challenge. But that doesn’t mean you can’t bawl first—and let me tell you, I did.

Just being in competition with other junior elite girls like Katelyn Ohashi and Lexie Priessman pushed me to raise my game. Once, I’d been hesitant to beat these girls because I was afraid they wouldn’t like me if I did. I now understood how wrong that thinking was. Every one of us had worked for years to earn our place in the arena. Competing my hardest in all my events was the highest form of respect I could show to them and to myself. Besides, as my mom always told me, “Don’t ever compete against someone else, Simone. You don’t go out there to beat another person. You go out there to do your very best. And if your very best means that you win that competition, that’s the way it should be. If your very best means that you come in third or fourth, that’s fine too. As long as you did your best. You don’t go out there grudgingly and think, Oh, I need to beat the person. No, no, no. You go out there and be the best Simone you can be. And whatever that outcome is, we’ll take it.

I still had moments when my nerves got to me, but whenever I’d start to get anxious, Kyla Ross would remind me, “Simone, just do what you do in practice.” And before I went out for each event, she’d high-five me and say, “Just like practice, Simone!” I’d say the same thing to her when it was her turn to go up. “Just like practice” became our catchphrase. As I walked onto the mat to do my floor exercise, I held on to that phrase like it was a lifeline, because I was about to perform a difficult move I’d come up with in practice—a double flip in the layout position with a half twist out. The way it happened was, I’d landed short on a double layout full out earlier that year during training, and I’d strained my calf muscle on the backward landing. Aimee didn’t want me to risk a more severe injury, so she suggested I do the double layout—body straight with legs together and fully extended as I flipped twice in the air—then add a half twist at the end. That extra half twist meant I’d have to master a very tricky blind forward landing, but it would put less stress on my calves. I thought the new combination sounded incredibly cool, so I started playing around with it until I was landing the skill 95 percent of the time. At the next Nationals Camp, I demonstrated the move for Martha and she thought it looked really good, so we went ahead and added it to the second tumbling pass of my floor routine. I’d already performed the combination at national meets that year, but doing it at Worlds was different. That’s because when a completely new skill is executed successfully at a season-ending championship like Worlds or the Olympics, the move will forever after be known by the name of the gymnast who first performed it. Talk about high stakes! I’ll cut to the chase: I nailed the move, which is how it came to be known as the Biles. How awesome is that! (The only problem is, when I see another gymnast perform the move now, I pray they don’t get hurt. I know it’s not logical, but because the move is named after me, I’d feel as if it was my fault.)

Determinizm Newton mekaniğinin bir özelliği olarak l9'uncu yüzyılda en parlak dönemine ulaştı. Pierre Simon de Laplace, 1820'de yayınladığı Theone analiytique des probabilities adlı yapıtında, geçmişe bakarak tüm evrenin geleceğini kesinlikle belirlemenin elimizde olduğunu ileri sürmüş ve günümüzde bile unutulmamış olan şu satırları yazmıştı: Doğada herhangi bir an etkin olan tüm güçleri ve evrende var olan tüm nesnelerin o anlık konumlarını bile bir zekâ, evrendeki en büyük cisimlerden en hafif atomlara kadar tüm nesnelerin hareketini tek bir formül kapsamında toplayabilir, yeter ki, bu zekâ eldeki verilerin hepsini birden çözümleyebilecek kadar güçlü olsun. Böyle bir zekâ için kesin olmayan hiçbir şey olmaz: geçmiş gibi gelecek de onun gözleri önünde olacaktır. İnsan aklının astronomiye vermeyi başarabildiği yetkinlik, böyle bir zekânın gücü yanında zayıf bir taslak gibi kalır. Mekanik ve geometri alanlarındaki buluşlar evrensel çekim teorisi ile birleşince, insan aklını, dünya sisteminin geçmiş ve gelecekteki durumunu sözü geçen o bir tek formülün çerçevesinde kavramaya yaklaştırmıştır.

The bear is stabbed on its side and a ten-inch needle or tube is inserted into the gall bladder, and then usually just left there with a pump attached. The bile contains an acid used in traditional medicine to . . . well, who cares what it’s used for. It’s completely mad and completely obscene.

Just because you're the Simone Biles of horse gymnastics doesn't mean the rest of us have to be.

I was used to that sort of pressure by now. Or at least I thought I was. My usual way of dealing with it was to put it out of my mind and focus on getting good workouts. But in Glasgow, leading up to the meet, our training days were so rigorous and long that I began to feel exhausted. Maggie Nichols and I were rooming together, and she admitted to feeling worn out as well. We weren’t the only ones. All the girls seemed fatigued, but no one dared to complain. That would have made us appear weak and unprepared, and might even get us pulled from the rotation. I remember I’d brought a banana back to our room to eat after the first day of practice. But I didn’t eat it that day, or the second day. Day after day, I kept saying, “Oh, I’ll eat it tomorrow.” And then I didn’t eat it because the skin had started to get brown and the fruit was mushy inside. That poor banana just stayed there, deteriorating. Maggie and I made a big joke of it: Every day we’d pick up the wilted thing. “Oh my gosh, this is us,” we’d say, cracking up. “Our energy is just draining away.” A few days later, Maggie’s coach brought a new bunch of bananas, and somewhere there is a phone video of Maggie yelling, “Simone, we’ve got bananas!” and the two of us dying laughing. You know when you’ve had a really long day and you’re so punchy with tiredness that everything seems hilarious? That was Maggie and me.

You can fly a helicopter, but you can’t sit up on a horse?” “Helicopters have seatbelts.” “This is not rocket science.” “Settle down, horse boy,” I said. “Just because you’re the Simone Biles of horse gymnastics doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be.

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Don’t change what has always worked for you, which is to go out there and have fun.