I really had to get over not being able to walk for a week and then not being able to run for months. It's been really frustrated for me because I knew who I was and I knew how I ran. Just working back up to who I was before the knee injury has been an experience.

Pole vaulting is all about strength and mental toughness. I'm afraid of heights, but I can vault over 11 feet. You have to be able to realize that you're going to go upside on the pole and you can hurt yourself like I did. You have to know what you're getting into.

Watching those highlights I just started crying because it hurt so bad. I had to leave the room because I didn't want everybody to think I was a little baby. It just hurt so bad not being there at state with them.

It's my passion. My dad taught me how to do it in the seventh grade and it's something I just love to do.

Part of the joy and pleasure of English is its boundless creativity: I can describe a new machine as bicyclish, I can say that I'm vitamining myself to stave off a cold, I can complain that someone is the smilingest person I've ever seen, and I can decide, out of the blue, that 'fetch' is now the word I want to use to mean 'cool.'

Writing really evokes empathy in a way very few things can do.