“If someone thinks, ‘I’ll spend the off season working on my fitness and I’ll come back a better cricketer,’ I don’t think that’s enough. You need to spend a lot of time working on your skills and honing your skills.”

What drew me towards team sport were the camaraderie and friendship. The chance to celebrate victory and success with a group of other people is something I have enjoyed doing.

I have failed at times, but I have never stopped trying.

Unwanted honking not only irritates others, but may also end up causing accidents. Drivers lose cool and it may result in road rage.

A career in sport is almost impossible to manage without the support, and guidance, and reassurance of family and friends. During tough times, and there always are, this is whom we go to.

Even if my grandchildren don’t remember the fact that I scored 10,000 runs in Test and ODI cricket, I am confident that they will remember that Sachin Tendulkar used to be my team-mate.

He is a great leader by example. Someone whom I have always admired for his ability to remain balanced and have the sense of equanimity about his captaincy.

I was telling people if every time I answered a question about Multan I got a rupee, I would be a multimillionaire by now.

If you don’t ask for the best, you don’t get it.

You get an image in the first couple of years of your career, and then whether you like it or not, you are stuck with it for the rest of your life.

Sachin Tendulkar is already a ‘Bharat Ratna’ for Indian people because of his phenomenal success and the manner in which he has served Indian cricket for years.

You don’t play for revenge, you play for respect & pride.

In a cricket career, your life is in some ways controlled for you. You have no control over schedules, you have no control about where you want to play, you don’t have control over that as a cricketer.

There are so many fans and so many people who care deeply about this game, and it is because of these fans that we are who we are as cricketers.

No dream is ever chased alone.

Playing in the same team as Sachin is a huge honour. His balance of mind, shrewd judgment, modesty and, above all, his technical brilliance make him my all-time hero. You can’t get a more complete cricketer than Sachin. He has everything that a cricketer needs to have.

I am what I am. I have not deliberately built an image for myself.

When I want to push myself and do intense workouts, I do that, but I’m not going to do it because anybody thinks I should look a certain way. It’s really more about how I feel and about being healthy.

Atheism is an exercise in intellectual contempt.

It is not particularly difficult to find thousands who will spend two or three hours a day in exercising, but if you ask them to bend their knees to God in five minutes of prayer they protest that it is too long.

I don’t like to run. You will not see me running on a treadmill ever. Ever! I like boxing, though, so if I can go to the gym and box for 30 minutes, I will.

It’s much less daunting once you’ve put your foot on the road to it. I’m a notorious couch potato and I don’t like exercise. Half an hour of physical exercise, like jogging or fast walking a day is a start.

The smallest changes, like I stopped eating meat and I’ve been doing different kinds of exercise like Yoga and stuff like that, little changes have made me feel a bit more at peace I think.

You can’t read about push ups. You gotta do them.

The very practice of reading [the Bible] will have a purifying effect upon your mind and heart. Let nothing take the place of this daily exercise.