I always hear commentators talking about squads that have been around and that have won things; they always mention the experience of winning and knowing what it takes to win. They have only got that through winning trophies and winning competitions.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

Christine Bass was my high school music teacher. She took a program on its last legs and within a few years turned into one of the best programs in the country. Our high school dominated national choir competitions all through her 20-plus year tenure.

Aaron Lazar

Teacher Pet Music

When I was a teenager, me and a couple of my friends entered a couple of modeling competitions just for fun, and one of those got me an agent in Sydney.

Abbie Cornish

Teen Pet Age

Competitions are a business, first and foremost.

Abby Lee Miller

Pet Business Us

I felt the strongest impulse to climb when I entered my first competitions.

Adam Ondra

Pet T Strongest

In a day and age when there are so many culinary competitions - ranging from contests of taste to those of technique - The World Food Championships will be the ultimate food competition.

Adam Richman

Pet Food Age

Yes, I am the Olympic champion, but this is not the end of it. I want all the gold that there is out there, everything that exists in figure skating. In all events, in all competitions.

Adelina Sotnikova

Pet Yes Want

I don't believe in competitions between artists. This is insane. Who has the authority to say someone is better?

Alan Arkin

Pet Art Who

I always hear commentators talking about squads that have been around and that have won things; they always mention the experience of winning and knowing what it takes to win. They have only got that through winning trophies and winning competitions.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

Pet Men Experience

We have a host of English teachers in the family. My mum is an English teacher, and so are my dad, my aunt and my uncle. I have grown up with family writing competitions, and I can't remember a birthday or Christmas present that didn't include books.

Alexandra Adornetto

Teacher Pet Family

I went to national piano competitions and did that whole circuit. Then I played professionally to support myself when I moved out to LA.

Alicia Witt

Pet Whole Who

My kids stand out at competitions. They're products of me. And you can't come to Beyond Belief and have a flamboyant teacher like me and be basic.

Alyssa Edwards

Teacher Pet You

I was always a show girl. My parents were wonderful. There wasn't a lot going on where we lived, but they ferried me to classes and competitions all over the place. When I was 12, I came to London as a finalist in a singing competition and I was completely wide-eyed.

Anna Maxwell Martin

Pet Wonderful Wonder

I sang a lot as a little girl and entered competitions. I loved singing in choirs, but it was as I got older that I really found my voice.

Annie Lennox

Pet Love Voice

My father was sick when I was little, and we had a woman, a nanny-type, who was from Ireland. Her daughter was in Irish dancing, so she put me in it, and in the summertime, every weekend was filled with traveling somewhere to dance in competitions.

Annie Wersching

Travel Time Pet

When I was younger, growing up in Pittsburgh, they had a 'Golden Gloves' program through the Boys and Girls Club. In Pittsburgh, New York, Philly, Washington, those areas, I would go and spar at competitions.

Antoine Fuqua

Pet Love Younger

Being a competitive dancer is an expensive business - you have to buy the £2,000 or so tail suit and the shoes, and then get yourself around the world to the competitions. And there is not a lot of money to be made in competing.

Anton du Beke

Pet Money Business

I hope to have my players in good physical condition, all players, and then to face all competitions.

Antonio Conte

Pet Hope Good

Vancouver is an amazing city and luckily, growing up in the Seattle area, I was able to immerse myself into the culture at a young age, traveling back and forth across the border for skating competitions as a youngster.

Apolo Ohno

Travel Pet Amazing

If you want to achieve something and have results and win competitions at a high level, you have to defend as a team.

Arjen Robben

Pet You Win

I compete against myself in competitions anyway, so I train against myself in practice.

Ashton Eaton

Pet Way Train

I think when the competitions come, I am always ready to go. I don't think I ever have not been.

Ashton Eaton

I started taking part in college competitions... my first-ever performance with a band was in McDonald's, and I got Rs 500. I still have the note.

Atif Aslam

The Olympic Games must not be an end in itself, they must be a means of creating a vast programme of physical education and sports competitions for all young people.

Avery Brundage

Competitions are for horses, not artists.

Bela Bartok

I don't rank competitions - every single one is the Olympics to me.

Blanka Vlasic

Professional gaming competitions are creating celebrities who are recognized and revered as athletes were in prior generations. Spectator gaming is becoming as popular as mainstream sports.

Bobby Kotick

When I was a kid. I had traveled the world by the time I was 13 years old because of all the competitions I did for inline skating.

Brittany Bowe

I had some great times doing competitions, but I have always been more into making movies because making movies is more about art and expressing yourself in a creative way.

Candide Thovex

We know how important both competitions are, especially the Champions League since it's such a special competition, but we want to win the league too. We take it game by game - concentrate on our league games, win them and then start thinking about the Champions League.

Casemiro

I am of the firm view that there is no impediment to me competing in athletics competitions.

Caster Semenya

The competitions between fiction and nonfiction, short and long, electronic and paper, are not battles in which there can be only one victor. After all, we exist in a world where more kinds of writing than ever are greeted with interest and enthusiasm.

Celeste Ng

I'm a wrestler, so I'm used to not being paid, and I'm used to doing five or six competitions a day and paying someone else to allow me into the event.

Chael Sonnen

Outside boxing, I did well in cross country competitions and I won a schoolboys' doubles badminton tournament at once. I was pleased because it was a hobby to me.

Chris Eubank Jr.

When it comes to cup competitions and the Champions League, it's always about going as far as we can. Getting out of the group stage is the first objective, then after that, we will see.

Christian Pulisic

The best players want to play for the best clubs in Europe and appear in top competitions like the Champions League.

Clarence Seedorf

I'm a fan of judo, so I always try to watch competitions like the European championship.

Claudia Kim

I loved gymnastics, and my gymnastics teacher said ballet was essential to help my dance routines in competitions. I only really went because my friends were going as well. It wasn't this kind of hidden love. Then, slowly, my friends stopped going and I thought, 'I like this. I am going to stay.'

Darcey Bussell

Sporting competitions seem to be what we obsess over, frankly. So if we can put engineering, science, technology into a format of healthy, fun competition, we can attract all sorts of kids that might not see the kind of activity we do as accessible or rewarding.

Dean Kamen

My school friends thought I was outgoing and bubbly, but that masked a lot of insecurities, and maybe that's the reason I chose drama - to build a bit of self-confidence. I had a great teacher, and I won a few speech and drama competitions and just fell in love with it.

Deborah Mailman

I used to go to auditions, mainly for talent competitions like 'Opportunity Knocks.'

Debra Stephenson

It was natural for me to go to local tournaments with my mother and watch my brothers compete and sometimes be left with my mom at home while my dad would take my brothers away to different tournaments and competitions. So I started doing everything they did.

Diana Lopez

That's what really makes great skating competitions. When you have two top skaters in good form giving superb performances.

Dick Button

When I was a teenager, my dad used to put a lot of pressure on me to be successful, and I'd really beat myself up about things like losing martial arts competitions.

Dolph Lundgren

There were no competitions on television. The first skating competition I ever remember seeing on television was the 1968 Olympics when Peggy Fleming won.

Dorothy Hamill

No event in strongman competitions lasts longer than 40 seconds, so by swimming in fast bursts, my body is conditioned for the level of speed and power it needs.

Eddie Hall

I don't believe that competitions are important.

Eddie Izzard

We know that in the Champions League and the knockout competitions, you can't make any mistakes.

Ederson

The best part of the high school in Hastings must have been the Music Department. Its orchestra and concert band did well in county competitions, and the dance band formed by its students was the best in the region. I played lead trumpet in all of them.

Edmund Phelps

We need a solution for European football. You need to help smaller clubs in European competitions get the right distribution of money so they can invest in coaches and attract talent for the level they can play at.

Edwin van der Sar

Don't get me wrong. I don't have a problem with anyone being proud to be a parent. I love children, some of my best friends used to be children. But I was fed up of these 'competitions,' so I decided to do the opposite, I decided to do the non-motherhood challenge and post five photos of myself which made me proud not to be a mother.

Ellie Taylor