“One thing I've learned in life is that I can speak for myself, that I can fight my own battles. I don't like anyone telling me how I'm supposed to feel or think or what I'm supposed to say.”

“I hate the cliche of 'just have fun,' but what I've seen in today's sports, especially with parents, is they put so much pressure on the kids.”

“All my life, since the time I was little, has been a long distraction. At least that is the way some people want to perceive it, but for me, it's given me a lot of strength.”

“I've been through a lot of things in my personal and family life. That turned me into a fighter. I always strive to be the best I possibly can.”

“I need a life outside of soccer. So I very much welcome, you know, new love interests and dating and friends and family.”

“I travel a lot and rarely make it home to Seattle.”

“We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired.”

“If we feel inwardly strong, we will have no need or desire to speak ill of others.”

“My problem is I say what I'm thinking before I think what I'm saying.”

“I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people-to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think it's the effect or vice versa”

“At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear.”

“I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”

“The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.”

“There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.”

“The moral of the tale is, don't live for the approval of others. The real you is here to find out the secret of life, not to satisfy someone else's opinion.”