Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Justice should be blind especially color-blind and able to fairly deal with the very real need for honest law enforcement.

I've had enough success for two lifetimes, My success is talent put together with hard work and luck.

Music rhythms are mathematical patterns. When you hear a song and your body starts moving with it, your body is doing math. The kids in their parents' garage practicing to be a band may not realize it, but they're also practicing math.

In a typical history book, black Americans are mentioned in the context of slavery or civil rights. There's so much more to the story.

I'm not comfortable being preachy, but more people need to start spending as much time in the library as they do on the basketball court.

Five guys on the court working together can achieve more than five talented individuals who come and go as individuals.

I think someone should explain to the child that it's OK to make mistakes. That's how we learn. When we compete, we make mistakes.

When I was 17, I worked in a mentoring program in Harlem designed to improve the community. That's when I first gained an appreciation of the Harlem Renaissance, a time when African-Americans rose to prominence in American culture. For the first time, they were taken seriously as artists, musicians, writers, athletes, and as political thinkers.

With 300 million people in America, you can fail to impress 299 million of them and still go platinum.

When I was a kid, no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. That's a terrible burden.

Basketball is an endurance sport, and you have to learn to control your breath; that's the essence of yoga, too. So, I consciously began using yoga techniques in my practice and playing. I think yoga helped reduce the number and severity of injuries I suffered. As preventative medicine, it's unequaled.

Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they are executed.

The extra pass and the extra effort on defense always get the job done.

Sports and entertainment are the only places where inner-city kids see themselves being able to succeed. Their intellectual development is something they don't relate to.

Today's youth are told to get rich or die trying and they really shouldn't take that attitude forward with them.

More whites believe in ghosts than believe in racism.

The '80s made up for all the abuse I took during the '70s. I outlived all my critics. By the time I retired, everybody saw me as a venerable institution. Things do change.

I was latching on to something that was part of my heritage, because many of the slaves who were brought here were Moslems.

Great players are willing to give up their own personal achievement for the achievement of the group. It enhances everybody.

I'm still my parent's child, I'm still me, but I made a choice. I evolved into Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I think it has to do with evolution.

I can do something else besides stuff a ball through a hoop. My biggest resource is my mind.