“Sometimes I surprise my own damn self.”

My career is an open book, but my life is not.

I don’t know if the record is going to happen. I don’t really think about the record. There are other things I worry about.

Serra High school, to me, was my most enjoyable time for me in my entire life. That was the only time I was free. We just played baseball because it was fun.

There is nothing better than walking out and hitting a home run.

I have a chef who makes sure that I’m getting the right amounts of carbs, proteins and fats throughout the day to keep me at my max performance level.

I think everyone needs to be a role model, period.

If you want to be on top, you’ve got to have broad shoulders, because as fast as you get there, the faster they try to knock you down.

I think some of the pressure comes from the expectations of other people. Like if your father played baseball, they expect you to be the big lifesaver or something when you play a sport.

I’d like to help educate kids about the Major Leagues – what to anticipate, what to expect, what they’ll need to do to prepare themselves.

I like to be against the odds.

I never stop looking for things to try and make myself better.

Those boos really motivate me to make something happen.

Baseball is just my job.

I know when I’m off alignment. I know when my body is out of adjustment. If your body is there, then mentally, you’ll be there. If your body feels good, then your mind feels good and your are going to feel better about your game.

It’s a relief now to be able to stand next to my godfather and finally feel like I’ve accomplished something in the game of baseball.

I don’t know what you guys say, but at home, life is way different from baseball.

I live by the simplest, perhaps facile command that Jesus ever gave, which is to love God with the whole self and the neighbor as the self, and I find that’s entirely consuming. To do those two things leaves me very little time to do much else.

I was being called to surrender the very citadel of my self. I was completely in the dark. I did not really know what repentance was or what I was required to repent of. It was indeed the turning point of my life.

The one thing which you have to abandon unconditionally is your self.

Transcendent Oneness does not require self-examination, self-help, or self-work. It requires self-loss.

People sinking into self-pity and depression are dreary, but they can’t get out of it by themselves. So every now and then, just sit there and listen, and listen, and listen. You’re paying your membership dues in the human race.

To succeed, we must have the will to succeed, we must have stamina, determination, backbone, perseverance, self-reliance, and faith.

Throughout history, self-styled arbiters have taken it upon themselves to decide the question of what can or cannot be the legitimate purview of art.

The artist’s task is to save the soul of mankind; and anything less is a dithering while Rome burns. Because of the artists, who are self-selected, for being able to journey into the Other, if the artists cannot find the way, then the way cannot be found.