When you are preparing for the Olympics, and it's really the only thing that you have in the world is this going to the Olympics or winning a medal at a World Championships, it seems like the biggest, most aggressive thing you can possibly think of.

But now that I've taken two years away from competition and, you know, I gave myself the time to eat and get fat and be happy and run around and do whatever I wanted whether it was write a book or record a song or get married, I gave myself the freedom to do those things, and now that I'm coming back, it's a completely different mind-frame as I realize that figure skating, while it is huge, and while the biggest part of my life for the most part, it isn't everything. So I can come back to competition without the pressure of my entire future resting on one performance or one two-minute stint in front of the judges and in front of the cameras of the world.
--press conference, U.S. Nationals, January 27, 2012