Today, I am blessed to be living a dream. And yet, if it all went away tomorrow, I know I would still have peace.
Tim Howard
Winning is fun, but those moments that you can touch someone's life in a very positive way are better.
OCD is an anxiety disorder, one that brings conscious intrusive thoughts and compulsions - 'Touch the bannister. Pick up that rock. You'd better do it, or something terrible will happen.'
My faith helped me stay grounded in defeat and victory, to not get too excited about the successes and too low about the failures.
I've been fortunate enough to be headstrong, to be full of self-belief, and those things have never wavered for me.
If there is a less likely sight on this earth than Clint Dempsey, the Texas trailer-park kid, doing downward-facing dog poses, or the stalwart Michael Bradley deep breathing through a tree pose, I have yet to see it.
My personal trainer suggested paleo to build muscle while staying lean, and it's one of the first plans that's worked for me.
Manchester United could have any goalkeeper in the world. I was a 23-year-old kid from New Jersey who, from an early age, had to cope with Tourette's Syndrome, a brain disorder that can trigger speech and facial tics, vocal outbursts and obsessive compulsive behavior.
I think part of being in the public eye is getting recognized and dealing with positive and negative scrutiny.
I was a pretty popular kid, and I participated in every sport.
Pressure can be good. It helps you to see what you're all about.
When you play against top players, sometimes you can play - you can play your utmost and you still get beat.
In July 2011, U.S. Soccer announced that they'd fired Bob Bradley and hired Jurgen Klinsmann as head coach. Jurgen had once been a world-class German striker; now he was regarded as a successful, if controversial, coach.
Sometimes you just give everything you have, and you do your absolute best, and it doesn't stack up.
Sometimes I tic or twitch or cough, and it's a very public thing.
I don't complain when it's sunny.
I had the offer to write books plenty of times during the early stage of my career, and I always kind of just pushed back because it wasn't the right time.
I've made plenty of mistakes as a keeper, that's for sure. I'll make plenty more before I'm through.
I wasn't a troublemaker. I wasn't impertinent. The teachers liked me. But year after year, the comments on my report cards basically came down to a single point, and it was 100% accurate: I seemed to get nothing whatsoever out of all those long hours spent in the classroom.
Right now, as I've gotten older, my tics sustain for five or ten years. So, I can deal with them on a daily basis; I know how it affects my body. But when you're 10 years old, and every three months a tic comes along, it's daunting because you don't know what the next one is going to look like, what it's going to feel like.
My life is training.
I think you hope, throughout the course of your career, if you do things right often enough, you might get a moment in time that you can do something special.
You get 15 minutes of fame, I hear, and I've had 14 minutes. The clock's ticking.
If you told me to sit in a room, and you had a million dollars cash stacked right there and said, 'Don't move, don't twitch, don't do anything,' without a doubt, the million dollars would be mine.
When you play professionally, you get accustomed to turnover. Players come and go - they get injured, they get transferred, they get cut from the team. Coaches are hired, and coaches are fired. It's just part of the world you live in.
I think there's a lot of things that need fixing at Manchester United apart from David Moyes, but in this business, you also realize the head coach is always going to be the first to go, unfortunately.
I try not to and I don't think I ever have just jumped at any opportunity because a company wanted me. Just because there was money on the table doesn't mean that I took it.
There are very few young goalkeepers who play at the top level. Most goalkeepers figure it out as time goes on.
I am grateful for the willingness of both Jurgen Klinsmann and Everton manager Roberto Martinez to afford me the opportunity to spend time with my kids.
There's a tacit understanding among clubs that a good player shouldn't miss out on the big break of his career or a chance at exponentially improved earnings.
Sure, I like ice cream, but when you keep a healthy lifestyle, it's: Do you prefer sweets and crappy food, or do you prefer to have a nice body? It depends on what you want more.
If you qualify for a World Cup and expect to get an easy group, you are in the wrong sport. It doesn't work like that.
I don't get a lot of time with my children. My time is precious, and time with my two kids is like gold dust to me. I can't get that time back.
Every old goalkeeper loses a step at some point, but you can gain that back through experience.
When I see someone wearing fur, I just want to sit them down in front of one of PETA's videos and show them just how badly animals suffer for this supposed fabric that no one needs.
Sometimes it's even hard to tell the difference between a tic and a compulsion. But while tics stem from an urge in a specific part of the body - either completely unconsciously or through a premonitory sensation that's satisfied only by the tic - OCD bubbles up as conscious thoughts in the mind.
I'm an old dog; I don't get too excited. I don't get caught up in all the mass hysteria.
We all need God in certain ways, you know. And I certainly fall short in a lot of categories. And it's at those times that I need much more help than most.
I like to get more than my normal 10 hours of sleep nights before a game.
I'm a gym rat; I love my hour-long afternoon sessions with my trainer.
I enjoy being a role model for kids.
I knew I wasn't going to play for the NBA.
Protecting animals is very important to me, and I think speaking out against fur is an amazing cause.
There is no privacy in our culture anymore, so I have to try and carve that out for myself, but I'm OK with it.
David Moyes was one who, at a certain crossroads in my career, he was there. And since then, I've kicked on. That's why he played such a big role in my career.
Good keepers sniff out attacks whether with the feet or a throw out.
As soon as things get serious in front of the goal, I don't have any twitches... It's probably because at that moment, my concentration on the game is stronger than the Tourette syndrome.
I wanted to be a soccer player; I wanted to do it at the highest level.
I grew up a Michael Jordan fan; that was my first idol. But my true sports idol was Deion Sanders: he was the person I always wanted to be. I wanted to play two sports professionally, which would never happen, but to me, that was every kid's dream.
I don't sign autographs when I'm out for a meal or out with my kids. I think that's rude and disrespectful. I would never ask anyone for an autograph while they were eating dinner; that's what I was taught by my parents.
