I remember being in Hollywood at the age of 16 and marveling at the stars. The idea of being part of it never entered my mind. It was too far-fetched.

There's also some element of coming of age during the Reagan administration which everybody has painted as some glorious time in America but I remember as being a very very dark time. There was apocalypse in the air the punk rock movement made sense.

I prefer younger men. In some ways they are much more open to a woman being stronger and independent then some of the men my age.

I think I'm a bit less inhibited and not thinking too much before speaking. It's not about being shameful I'm just a bit more unabashedly myself because of this thing and it probably started at age 15. I can be around people and say what I think without fear.

I basically get stereotyped a lot in terms of being a girl and writing 'chick' music for teenage girls or something. I think if anything the press kind of because of my gender and my age tends to kind of relegate my work to this sort of special-interest group. It's part of the cultural dynamic I guess.

This is my 20th year in the sport. I've known swimming and that's it. I don't want to swim past age 30 if I continue after this Olympics and come back in 2016 I'll be 31. I'm looking forward to being able to see the other side of the fence.

I was a mixture of being incredibly old for my age and incredibly backwards. I was born quite old but then I stopped growing. I lived with my mum and dad till I was 30.

I had the good fortune to be able to right an injustice that I thought was being heaped on young people by lowering the voting age where you had young people that were old enough to die in Vietnam but not old enough to vote for their members of Congress that sent them there.

I remember at the age of five travelling on a trolley car with my mother past a group of women on a picket line at a textile plant seeing them being viciously beaten by security people. So that kind of thing stayed with me.

I would like to see more airplay for all artists no matter what age. I think there's a lot of money being spent toward the young guys but a lot of the older guys are the ones who blazed the trail for those young guys.