“Yao Ming is the best thing to happen to the NBA in a long time. He is just a beautiful person inside and out. The vision, the creativity, the gentleness of spirit … he has it all.”

[Peter] Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” was my first go-to song in terms of getting into the zone and getting ready and then I quickly gravitated to rock and roll music in the mid-’60s with the Grateful Dead,

Bill Russell was my favorite player of all-time.

Mick Jagger is in better shape than far too many NBA players. It’s up in the air whether the same can be said of Keith Richards.

The NCAA is working night and day trying to get Jerry, but no one from the NCAA ever questioned me during my four years at UCLA!

Growing up, my parents were very, very strict. And then I went to UCLA with John Wooden, who was just off the charts.

Basketball, Sports, Winning, Average

I was a skinny, scrawny guy. I stuttered horrendously, couldn’t speak at all. I was a very shy, reserved player and a very shy, reserved person. I found a safe place in life in basketball.

Kazemi has to understand that nobody is going to tell him he has to go back to Iran if he misses a shot.

Never rank, rate, or compare coaches, children, concerts, or championships or congratulations. Just enjoy them all.

If you’re living for today, if you’re only dreaming about yesterday, it doesn’t work. You got to know that tomorrow is going to be better. Then you’re on your way.

I like a lot of other music and listen to a lot of other music, but one of the greatest things about the Grateful Dead is they played all the time.

I went to my first show [of the Grateful Dead], got right up front and never left. The incredible excitement, the family, the spirit, the hope, the happiness, all the different things I love and live for in life are there.

There are no guarantees in life. The simple twists of fate and the breaks of the game are the two maxims that define so much of the success and failure in life.

I might be the most injured athlete in the history of sports. I’ve had 31 operations. An endless string of stress fractures.

Health is the most critical thing in our life. With your health anything is possible, without it you can’t do anything.

What a pathetic play from a pathetic human being.

Nowadays, China is experiencing the detrimental effects of such decisions. Its citizens have no creativity.

Creativity is the power to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential. Simply put, aside from using one’s imagination – perhaps more importantly – creativity is the power to act.

Creativity is part of human nature. It can only be untaught.

Civilization has evolved toward more acceptance, understanding and tolerance of global thinking. If we accept differences, our creativity booms. It makes life much more colorful.

A society is healthy only when it allows its members to discuss their thoughts openly. This is also the only way that a society can gather consensus, let everyone express his or her wish, and foster creativity.

Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little.

Awareness yields to itself, to its inherent creativity, to its expression in form, to experience itself.

The creative urge is the demon that will not accept anything second rate.