It's a heavy burden to look up at the mountain and want to start the climb.
Abby Wambach
The most important thing is that sometimes you have to go through hard times to get to the good stuff.
My eldest sister Beth is a doctor who studied at Harvard and Columbia and played basketball for Harvard. She set the athletic and academic standard for the rest of us to follow.
When I look in the mirror, I don't see a person who's made the kind of impact that Mia Hamm made on the game. She's still my idol, the greatest player and the greatest teammate. She achieved so much in so many different ways. What she did for women's soccer can't be measured.
I always think that struggle can bring out the best in people - or the worst.
My nephew has type 1 diabetes, and it's my goal and hope that in his lifetime there will be a cure for diabetes. There's no place better to give the money to than the Juvenile Diabetes Association.
I'm honestly not the kind of person who wants to step up to a podium, test the microphone and be like, 'Hey, I'm homosexual and this is who I am, hear me roar.' That's not who I am.
I have never once dribbled the whole field and scored a goal by myself.
A few goals is the way soccer is meant to be played.
It's always really challenging trying to go from player to player/coach. You have a kind of friendship basis of relationship with all of your teammates, and now you go to this power position where you have to make decisions that might hurt people's feelings.
I'm a pretty decent cook. I like to grill. I have a smoker that I love. I love me some steak. And I'll make a huge salad with a ton of vegetables.
I'm fiercely patriotic, and the flag and the anthem is something that I really, really respect.
I've always been motivated more by negative comments than by positive ones. I know what I do well. Tell me what I don't do well.
I hope we can get to a point where women players are being paid properly all around the world so the only thing they have to worry about is playing football and playing football alone.
We need to have women in more powerful positions that are making decisions, so when that 10-year-old girl is looking up and wondering, 'What can I do and what do I want to be when I get older?' She has the opportunity to do and be whatever she wants.
To win a championship, you have to have a little bit of luck on your side.
I'll be honest. After I got married, I definitely had a shift in emotional devotion.
I have a unique ability to predict the flight of the ball, and my teammates have a unique ability to find me.
If you break an individual record, it's because of the greatness that comes before you.
I am not a politician by nature, but I will say I think there need to be more women in FIFA, and I would be open to having those conversations when the time is right.
I don't know if I found soccer or if soccer found me. Especially because when I was younger, I was doing it, in a lot of ways, because I wanted the attention of my mom and dad.
I am going to change the world, and I'm talking to everybody in the possible world that I can get to that can help me to do that.
I always wanted to be more validated as a human being, as a person, than I was as a player. I think that was a really hard balance for me.
One thing I love to do when I'm working out is take my watch off, take my heart strap off, and just run - not for time, not for exertion, but just to get the blood flowing.
It feels a little bit odd to me that you have some guys that have never lived in the United States that play for the United States because they were able to secure a passport. To me, that just feels like they weren't able to make it for their country and earn a living, so they're coming here.
I think I take on a little more responsibility when push comes to shove. I'm not scared to fail.
When you're younger and traveling and visiting new countries and cities, that stuff is exciting; it's flashy, it's shiny, but I always had this separation between who I was as a person and who I was as a player.
Soccer players generally burn through all of their carbohydrate stores by halftime, so how are you going to replace those? That's what we do at halftime.
I would say Hope Solo is competitive.
Whenever you get to win, you feel the satisfaction of all of your hard work, all the sacrifices, all the blood, sweat and tears. It feels right and makes you realise that you are really doing the right thing.
People don't understand that the feel of the surface is so important for a footballer. The ball travels on the surface; our feet move on the surface - all of that goes into how the game is actually played.
Forever, it was just soccer - passion, life, love. Then I got married, and I had to transfer some of my energy. I want to be my best for my country, but I also made a really big promise and choice to be the best in my marriage. That has not always been the easiest thing to manage.
2014 was physically a tough year because I injured my knee, and you know how that goes with your emotions and the mentality.
I want to reduce my risks as much as possible and hopefully be able to go to the World Cup fit, ready and healthy.
The growth of women's soccer and women's sports all around the world has been slow.
As soon as I started to realize that I could make a living playing professional soccer, I went to that place where I could torture myself because I knew it would make me better for the championship game.
Sometimes when you fail, it allows you the opportunity to grow more motivation and get more intense about your training.
I'm not spending every second thinking about the World Cup, but it's always in my mind when I make choices and decisions.
I'm not sure if I'm going to get into coaching. I'm sure I'll stay in soccer somehow.
I would trade all the individual awards I've won for a World Cup.
My teammates have put me in all different kinds of positions to score goals, and I can't say it enough, and I really through and through believe it in my heart that I'm only as good as my teammates allow me to be.
People don't think an athlete nowadays can have a team-first mentality and I do.
The truth is, I've been on a team my whole life. I'm the youngest of 7, so I've been training to be an athlete my whole life.
I haven't won a World Cup. There's things that haven't been finished, and I'm not afraid to fall flat on my face trying.
I know that I'll end up being a role model for many, many people out there for all kinds of reasons.
I don't care how many championships you've won or how many records you've broken - if you've had a hand in pushing forward not only a game but women in sport's movement, then I think that's pretty darn good.
For any athlete growing up, the Olympics is the one thing you watch with your family, and it's the one thing you dream about. Seeing your country's flag go up as you get a gold medal is the best thing you can achieve.
When I was in college, I learned to really take care of my body and figured out what works best for me and what doesn't work for me when it comes to my nutrition. That helped so much on the field because soccer is such a fitness-oriented game.
As professional soccer players, we take our bodies to the extreme. We're the people at the gym that look like we're breaking the machines. Pushing our bodies to the limits is what makes us so strong and capable and Olympians. It's not an easy thing to consistently do over and over again to your body.
I'm not in the business of politics.