“When I was young, I never wanted to leave the court until I got things exactly correct. My dream was to become a pro.”

I’ve been around a while. I kinda know these things.

My coach told me, “Larry, no matter how much you work at it, there’s always someone out there who’s working just a little harder – if you take 150 practice shots, he’s taking 200.” And that drove me.

Strength is not nearly as important as desire. I don’t think you can teach anyone desire. I think it’s a gift. I don’t know why I have it, but I do.

It makes me sick when I see a guy just stare at a loose ball and watch it go out of bounds.

The best player I ever played with was Dennis Johnson.

There are many times when you are better off practicing than playing; but most people just don’t understand that

I’ve got a theory that if you give 100% all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end.

The one thing that always bothered me when I played in the NBA was I really got irritated when they put a white guy on me.

I really don’t like talking about money. All I can say is that the Good Lord must have wanted me to have it.

You can make all the excuses you want, but if you’re not mentally tough and you’re not prepared to play every night, you’re not going to win.

Who in their right mind wouldn’t listen to what Larry Bird tells them? He knows what it takes to be a successful player, and he’s letting us do the things to have the success.

First master the fundamentals.

I always know what’s happening on the court. I see a situation occur, and I respond.

I wasn’t real quick, and I wasn’t real strong. Some guys will just take off and it’s like, whoa. So I beat them with my mind and my fundamentals.

Anytime you’ve got an opportunity to play for your country and win a gold medal,

But it is a black man’s game, and it will be forever.

It’s when you get to 60 when everything starts to go pear-shaped. Everyone thinks that becoming an older guy is easy, but you never consider it fully. It comes as quite a shock.

It just seems like we get more popular every eight years or so. For some reason, it becomes cool to like Motorhead again.

Kids are generally rotten until the age of about six, when they become people.

And it was this belief which led to the subject becoming the main theme of our activities at Calcutta from that time onwards.

For me, it’s about becoming a mogul, owning my own projects, and establishing myself as a funding producer. That’s what’s big to me. The movies and all that stuff are great, but the fact that I’m in a position to do what I want to do, however I want to do it and when I want to do it is bigger.

Don’t ever become a pessimist… a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.

The child, merely by going on with his life, learns to speak the language belonging to his race. It is like a mental chemistry that takes place in the child.

I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth it?