“As far as how I expressed ‘practice, practice, practice’ over and over again, I wouldn’t take that back because, obviously, that sound bite is great for the media and for the fans, because they love it.”

I think a lot of times, when people who get a chance to meet me and be around me, they understand that I’m not the person that the media make me out to be.

I just feel this is my planet.

I couldn’t have accomplished the things in my career if I didn’t practice, and the worst part about that whole thing is when a kid comes up to me and says ‘Allen, I don’t like practice, either.’ I’ve got to straighten that kid right then.

I didn’t take constructive criticism the way I should have. When I finally caught up to that, that’s when I went to being the MVP.

Just because you put a guy in a tuxedo doesn’t make him a good guy.

I want to play basketball so bad.

I don’t have any problems with what these guys wear because they got their own style and their own originality. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, man.

Tattoos, cornrows, headbands, hip-hop. I never meant to start any trends. I got my butt kicked, but if that meant that the guys who came after me could be themselves, then it was worth it.

My actions, right or wrong, there were people who supported me through this long, hard journey.

Man, people have been waiting for me to fall off my whole career. From the first time I stepped on the court. It probably made people sick to their stomachs watching my whole career, watching the things that I’ve done in my career.

When you lose, there is a whole bunch of room for negativity and I don’t feed into this stuff and I do not do any talking. I don’t run my mouth.

You think I can be the MVP without practicing?

You can hide from the devil, but he’ll always find you.

My whole thing was being wanted and being accepted by a ball club. That was the most important thing to me.

If I don’t believe it, then they don’t need me on the court. I’ve just got to believe that in my heart.

This is like a tribute to them, the people who helped me to get here. The thing that makes me feel good about the whole thing is, the fans voted me here.

I think being someone in love is so hard to define, so temporary, because retrospectively we often deny the state in which we were in love.

My way of expression is full of complications and mystery because that’s my perception of life.

The one thing that fills me with enthusiasm is to try, despite everything, to get nearer to those visions that seem so hard to express.

The only other things I got from the abstract expressionists is the absolute belief that this canvas is the complete total area of struggle, this is the arena, this is where the fight is taking place, the battle.

I’m actually kind of angriest about the fact that everybody keeps saying how angry I am.

It is no longer a matter of expressing reality, but of expressing what one feels about reality.

I wanted to be a painter, somewhere between Abstract Expressionism and Pop.

The sciences throw an inexpressible grace over our compositions, even where they are not immediately concerned; as their effects are discernible where we least expect to find them.