“I approach every week the same. I think I’ve always tried to be very professional to how I approach the game, my preparation. Every game is important.”

To me, football is so much about mental toughness, it’s digging deep, it’s doing whatever you need to do to help a team win and that comes in a lot of shapes and forms.

I’ve always been privileged to play for Coach Belichick, who I’ve always said is the best coach in the history of the league.

We all have experiences in our lives that change us, and we all learn from people, like my dad, but at the end of the day, it’s only us. And we’re only responsible to make ourselves happy.

It’s never come easy for me. I don’t think my mind allows me to rest ever. I have, I think, a chip on my shoulder, and some deep scars that I don’t think were healed.

I don’t think there’s a lot of carry-over from year to year. I don’t think anybody cares what you did the year before.

Everyone is dealing with something. This is life; this is not just a piece of cake.

I don’t want to wake up and be bored. That’s probably my greatest fear is to have nothing to do. What better job is there than to play quarterback for an NFL team, and certainly one that I’ve been on for a long time and had success with? I don’t plan on giving it up any time soon.

I’m not squeezing the balls. That’s not part of my process.

You put all the other stuff aside and go out and do your job, and mine is to be the best I can be for my teammates.

As an athlete, when you are on that field and the fans get really engaged and you can feel their energy and passion and true love of the game, it is absolutely a spiritual experience.

Man, wear your seat belts. That’s all I can tell everybody. You never know.

My mom was a great tennis player, and I remember being six or seven years old watching Steffi Graf and Monica Seles in Wimbledon in my house. I’ve always been a tennis fan.

With football, you can have up to 28 guys you consider starters, and if they can pick up the slack when some aren’t playing so well, you don’t have to turn those two-game losing streaks into six-game losing streaks.

I think sometimes in life the biggest challenges end up being the best things that happen in your life.

Football is unconditional love.

Fortunately for a quarterback, you can play for a long time because you don’t get hit very often.

It’s safe to say I changed the game and made it out the trenches.

If you waste your time and energy on things that don’t matter in the outcome of the game, then when you get to the game you’re not going to give your teammates the best that you have to offer.

Human life very much resembles a game of chess: for, as in the latter, while a gamester is too attentive to secure himself very strongly on one side of the board, he is apt to leave an unguarded opening on the other, so doth it often happen in life.

The only way a kid is going to practice is if it’s total fun for him and it was for me.

I like skiing and surfing with kids. They are the cutest little skiers out there, in their little outfits. I just want to eat ’em up!

That’s the name of the game. Pleasing the customer. If we ever lose sight of that fact, we’ve lost the ball game.

I don’t wanna play your game, boy. Cleanin’ up the messes that you make.

Why do you press harder on a remote-control when you know the battery’s dead?