Mom only gets angry when I don't visit her enough. She raised six kids to be 100 percent independent and work for everything we achieve. I mean, we don't expect anything for free.

Maybe in America there's more of an emphasis on food than there should be. But when I look out at the audience during a competition, some people are shocked, but most people are smiling.

There's no better feeling than beating someone who's up on a high horse.

There are times when I'm not eating buns if I'm on a low carb diet. I'll have hot dogs and romaine lettuce, but if I'm at a baseball game, I'm always eating a hot dog.

I'd like to go out on top, preferably breaking a new world record on the Fourth of July.

I can't always go out to a restaurant and have a normal dinner.

I lose now and then. I get lazy. And sometimes I work just hard enough to win.

The bigger the crowd, the more likely I'll do whatever it takes to win.

I'm really normal except for the competitive eating.

When I'm eating I try to make sure I can breathe through my nose the entire time. If I have to breathe through my mouth, there's no way I'm eating or swallowing.

I think Peter King... he's kind of narrow-minded.

I think the traveling is what drew me into 'The Amazing Race' years ago.

It wasn't like I grew up wanting to be a competitive eater at all. Not like a lot of people, like football players, famous people - they knew that that's what they wanted to do when they were young.

I was 21, and I was in college, and I'd eat real healthy during the week, and then on the weekends I would reward myself, and I'd just go to town on whatever my parents had in the fridge. And my little brother would be like, 'Hey.' And so it was actually him that begged me to do my first contest.

I'm very competitive.

Going into a contest, I do not eat solid food and take in minimal calories for days, so I am hungry.

I love to eat! I don't think I have ever gotten sick of eating a food, unless it is bad food.

I've strained some muscles here and there, in my throat, even my jaw. Nothing that doesn't heal quickly.

It's always a battle to maintain my weight.

There are competitive people who love to push their body but don't love to eat like I do.

Make sure I'm chewing, swallowing, and breathing, my whole body is working together. I can just find a rhythm and keep going and going and going. It's my love of food.

I've signed babies' arms. I wanted to pull a 'Ricky Bobby' and sign a baby's forehead.

So now I'm 'the hot dog guy,' which isn't bad. I take it in stride. It's not like it was my goal in life. I'm having fun with it.

If I can train for a contest for a week, it's a guaranteed victory.

When I'm in training, I eat no solid food except hot dogs for six weeks.

It's more of a mental sport because I know I can push harder than someone who doesn't know what his body can do.

I love food, and not surprisingly, I often suffer from stomach upsets when I overeat in general, let alone when I'm competing.

The way I see it, I love to eat more than anybody.

I go to the doctor every four months to get my blood work done to make sure everything is working right.

Everything at a baseball game is pretty much health food if you subscribe to the theory that you're eating what makes you happy.

Kobayashi was the man. The other competitive eaters, they thought of him as unbeatable... He wasn't an eater. He was a god.

I think I get out of bed because I love to eat.

Competitive eating is something I can control. I know I can control, and if I push hard, I can win.

Winning tastes pretty good.

I'm getting paid to eat. It's not too bad of a life.

There's nothing worse than getting third.

Military caregivers play an essential role in the recovery process of our veterans and are more than deserving of our support.

Honoring our nation's heroes and their caregivers is a cause very important to me - especially on Independence Day.

I didn't just eat hot dogs. I studied how the food went into your system and how it would be digested.

I know that when I'm fitter, I breathe better. If I breathe better, I can eat more.

Traveling around the world to eat, it's a weird life, but I love it.

The most important thing in any contest is finding your rhythm and making your body work for you.

I love hot dogs.

I know I hold the contest record for downing the most hot dogs, and the record for most Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Contest championships, but it was really cool to be a part of a Guinness World Records official attempt.

I don't mind losing because it really shows me what the other eaters are capable of.

It doesn't get old. Just like running doesn't get old to people who like to run. I just love to eat.

I have to eat healthy, and I recover. I run, and I lift weights.

If there's something I like, I'm going to eat a little more of it than most people.

I do know when my body is ready or when it's going to perform best for me.

I can't tell you all my secrets to how I can eat so many. Someone out there might copy it. But I will tell you this: The night before the competition, I sleep only four hours. That means when I actually do eat, my stomach will want to digest the food quicker.