“I don’t know if I practiced more than anybody, but I sure practiced enough. I still wonder if somebody – somewhere – was practicing more than me.”

Practice habits were crucial to my development in basketball.

Whether it’s a tie game or down by 1 or up by five, it was always the same shot. So I always felt comfortable with the ball in my hands because it was in there a million times before.

I don’t think that once you get to one level, you can relax. You’ve got to keep pushing.

I’m a firm believer in that you play the way you practice.

I wanted to compete at the highest level again – and that’s the NBA.

I didn’t play against the toughest competition in high school, but one reason I was able to do well in college was that I mastered the fundamentals.

You never make any of the shots you never take. 87% of the ones you do take, you’ll miss too. I make 110% of my shots.

Leadership is diving for a loose ball, getting the crowd involved, getting other players involved. It’s being able to take it as well as dish it out. That’s the only way you’re going to get respect from the players.

Basketball was always a game to me. One of the greatest things in life for me was to be able to play what I loved dearly and get paid for it. So it was always a game to me and that’s how I perceived everything.

The best players will play. That’s the way it will always be.

I mean, the greatest athletes in the world are African-American.

Once you are labeled ‘the best’ you want to stay up there, and you can’t do it by loafing around.

I like being by myself.

When I was a player, I didn’t expect my teammates to play the way I did. I did expect them to work hard every day and get better. And I never learned anything by losing.

Maybe it’s God disguised as Michael Jordan.

I think it’s good for a fan base because as we all know the majority of the fans are white America. And if you just had a couple of white guys in there, you might get them a little excited.

It is far better to be free to govern or misgovern yourself than to be governed by anybody else

Now, I don’t know how they judge all that, but if anybody in the world deserves to be in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, Ritchie Valens does.

Don’t ever try and be like anybody else and don’t be afraid to take risks.

No-one wants to see anybody fail in life.

I really take my hat off to anybody that steps in the ring because it’s so hard – you’re competing against your friends, and you’re working in front of an audience who tells you exactly what they’re thinking.

Thus, anybody who follows this nature and gives way its states will be led into quarrels and conflicts, and go against the conventions and rules of society, and will end up a criminal.

The riches of the rich are not the cause of the poverty of anybody; the process that makes some people rich is, on the contrary, the corollary of the process that improves many peoples want satisfaction.

I’m eighteen years behind in my ironing.