“Create unselfishness as the most important team attribute.”

My father once told me that anyone who worked for three dollars an hour owed it to himself to put in four dollars’ worth of work.

If you really have integrity, there are very few people who can insult you, or honor you.

Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory.

Heart in champions has to do with the depth of our motivation and how well your mind and body react to pressure – that is, being able to do what you do best under maximum pain and stress.

We learn to make a shell for ourselves when we are young and then spend the rest of our lives hoping for someone to reach inside and touch us. Just touch us-anything more than that would be too much for us to bear.

The idea is not to block every shot. The idea is to make your opponent believe that you might block every shot.

My most prized possession was my library card from the Oakland Public Library.

Don’t knock the ball in the stands, keep it in your hands!

If you can take something to levels that very few other people can reach, then what you’re doing becomes art.

To me, the most important part of winning is joy. You can win without joy, but winning that’s joyless is like eating in a four-star restaurant when you’re not hungry. Joy is a current of energy in your body, like chlorophyll or sunlight, that fills you up and makes you naturally want to do your best.

The only important statistic is the final score.

The last five or six days, I’ve been running. The last two days, I’ve been running pretty hard. Everybody’s got to be someplace.

Commitment separates those who live their dreams from those who live their lives regretting the opportunities they have squandered.

Success is a result of consistent practice of winning skills and actions. There is nothing miraculous about the process. There is no luck involved.

What’s more important than who’s going to be the first black manager is who’s going to be the first black sports editor of the New York Times.

We overreached our decision power. Sometimes our decisions have to fit the reality of the outside world.

Beware of those who attribute petty instructions to God.

That world beyond is a world of sanctity and radiance; therefore, it is necessary that in this world he should acquire these divine attributes..

When this holy attribute is established in man, all the divine qualities will also become realized.

I attribute my success to this – I never gave or took any excuse.

With a lot of comedians, one of their major attributes is that they look comedic, with a certain hangdog or manic expression. I look like the neighborhood bully. That doesn’t elicit laughter.

Two attributes of a poet, avidity of the eye and the desire to describe that which he sees.

Effective leaders share two intertwined attributes: an unbridled level of confidence about where their organizations are headed, and the ability to bring people along.

I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.