Quotes on Sports

Close don't count in baseball. Close only counts in horseshoes and grenades.

Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.

Golf is not a game of good shots. It's a game of bad shots.

It's nice to come into a town and be referred to as the manager of the Cleveland Indians instead of as the first black manager.

Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.

Exercise is king. Nutrition is queen. Put them together and you've got a kingdom.

Bruce Lee was an artist and, like him, I try to go beyond the fundamentals of my sport. I want the public to see a knockout in the making.

There's only one way to become a hitter. Go up to the plate and get mad. Get mad at yourself and mad at the pitcher.

I told you all I was going to be No. 1, and I did just that.

We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers.

Ever since that day when I was 11 years old, and I wasn't allowed in a photo because I wasn't wearing a tennis skirt, I knew that I wanted to change the sport.

If the world was perfect, it wouldn't be.

A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.

No one knows what to say in the loser's locker room.

I learned early in sports that to be effective - for a player to play the best he can play - is a matter of concentration and being unaware of distractions, positive or negative.

When I was a young fellow I was knocked down plenty. I wanted to stay down, but I couldn't. I had to collect the two dollars for winning or go hungry. I had to get up. I was one of those hungry fighters. You could have hit me on the chin with a sledgehammer for five dollars. When you haven't eaten for two days you'll understand.

Your ups and downs in sports, I think they are as normal as daily life: One day you wake up and feel great, the next day you wake up and feel maybe less great.

I quit because I didnt feel like the Detroit Lions had a chance to win. It just killed my enjoyment of the game.

If nobody talks about books, if they are not discussed or somehow contended with, literature ceases to be a conversation, ceases to be dynamic. Most of all, it ceases to be intimate. It degenerates into a monologue or a mutter. An unreviewed book is a struck bell that gives no resonance. Without reviews, literature would be oddly mute in spite of all those words on all those pages of all those books. Reviewing makes of reading a participant sport, not a spectator sport.

You've got to learn the footwork, the positioning, how to box out, how to pass, how to shoot your free throws. All these things are necessary, not to be the No. 1 player in the world, but maybe you can play against him.

There are kids don't want to do something because they're afraid of looking stupid to their peers. There comes a time when they start protecting themselves, instead of extending. I want to make sure that they're always trying to extend themselves.