“I take pride in working very hard. You need to understand that hard work doesn’t instantly pay off. My career grew gradually and taught me a lesson every step of the way.”

Petersburg, growing up at home, all by my family and friends, Petersburg really, city-raised me, you know everybody there.

I’ve never really been settled. I don’t think I’ve ever known what it was like to be a person that was used to sitting still. I think it’s given me the ability to detach from any situation.

It wouldn’t be me if I didn’t get a little nasty.

The first tattoo I got was when I was 17, and it’s a cross on my bicep with ‘Only God Can Judge Me’ underneath.

Style is a display of character. It’s also a great way to express yourself and the ladies like it.

I think ‘selfies’ are fun and expressive, as long as you don’t get carried away with it.

In my dressing room, you’ll definitely find some Starbursts and Skittles. I have a lot of candles that remind me of home, and a humidifier for my voice. I also have some digital Kodak albums where I have pictures of my friends and family.

A lot of people perceive women as sexy based on their outer appeal. But there’s no way to mistake if a woman is confident.

Singing wasn’t a reality for me, until other people started noticing I sounded good.

I think clothes are very much a representation of your attitude and the way you feel. I really love to be dressed down, though.

Versace has always been a brand that I’ve loved, a brand that has supported me. I’ve been wearing Versace for so long, I come in here and I have friends here, and they really support what it is that I do. Our partnership has been great.

I’m a guy that appreciates spontaneity and a woman being genuine and different.

I like hair each and every way. I like to give scalp massages – to pull and tug on it. But my favorite style is long, real hair in a dusty blonde-brown color.

I grew up poor, but I didn’t really know it because of amazing places like the Salvation Army where we got a lot of our Christmas presents from.

Life in general you gotta believe in you…. you live your life for you, you do what you do for you, because the moment you start to live your life for others you’ll lose yourself within that. Focus on what it is you want to have. Go get it.

Love is hard to find, but love is one of a kind.

Mercy,’ I love conceptually because I feel like you can either think about it as if it were a girl – which it sounds like it could be about a girl – but I like to picture it as ‘pleading for mercy for my career’ type of thing.

Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.

You rarely come across the complete footballer, but Scholes is as close to it as you can get. One of my regrets is that the opportunity to play alongside him never presented itself during my career.

You can’t make somebody understand something if their salary depends upon them not understanding it.

I wanted to be an actor, like, so, so bad. I took acting classes, I auditioned for Disney, and then I realized how nervous I got with remembering lines.

One of my big, big strengths I think early on in my career was that I could learn very quickly. You wouldn’t have to tell me the things 10 times or 50 times until I would understand them. You would only have to tell me two or three times.

If you don’t like what you’re doing, then don’t do it.

Maybe further down the road in my career, in a couple of years when I’m maybe not that fast any more around the court, then maybe it would be good to come to the net a little bit more often.