Magic Johnson

I'm building shopping centers and movie theaters in the inner cities. So that means supplying jobs and letting blacks understand that we have to build our communities back, not looking to anybody else.

Standing on that platform, I said a silent prayer. I thanked God for giving me the strength and the opportunity to come back, to play basketball again, and to be part of that whole magnificent Olympic experience. It's a memory I will always cherish.

HIV changed my life, but it doesn't keep me from living.

I love business. I love helping urban communities grow. I love putting people to work of color. I love making sure - like right now the whole mortgage crisis, I want to help people get back into their homes.

I never think that there's something I can't do, whether it's beating my opponent one on one or practicing another hour because something about my game is just not right.

My first and only experience in baseball, the coach signed me up; he didn't tell me there's a thing called the curveball. I didn't know that. So the ball's coming at me and I start backing out, and then it broke inside. And the umpire says, 'Strike one!' And I'm saying, 'How is that a strike? It almost hit me!'

In life, winning and losing will both happen. What is never acceptable is quitting.

For me, it always goes back to something I learned in basketball. There's winning and there's losing, and in life you have to know they both will happen. But what's never been acceptable to me is quitting.

For a long time, I'd work until 10 or 11. When I work, I'm on. I'm 'Magic.' I love it, but it takes a lot out of me.

When you are honest and open with young people, they let you in.

I was around when my father finished the last payment of his house. I remember like it was yesterday. He had worked all those years to own that house and he cried. He was so excited and so happy and I want to see other people get that feeling, too.

I don't care who is attacking my son. I still support him; I still love him.

Any guy who can maintain a positive attitude without much playing time certainly earns my respect.

Everybody on a championship team doesn't get publicity, but everyone can say he's a champion.

Young people want you to be real with them.

Ask not what your teammates can do for you. Ask what you can do for your teammates.

Even as a fierce competitor I try to smile.

I've always been a leader my whole life. I've always led. I didn't know how to do anything else.

I have to tell you, I'm proudest of my life off the court. There will always be great basketball players who bounce that little round ball, but my proudest moments are affecting people's lives, effecting change, being a role model in the community.

I'm a big believer in dreaming. If you don't dream it, you can't become it.

A lot of black guys always ask me, 'Did Larry Bird really play that good?' I said, 'Larry Bird is so good it's frightening.'