“If it wasn’t for baseball, I’d be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery.”

Don’t ever forget two things I’m going to tell you. One, don’t believe everything that’s written about you. Two, don’t pick up too many checks.

Baseball changes through the years. It gets milder.

Paris ain’t much of a town.

Reading isn’t good for a ballplayer. Not good for his eyes. If my eyes went bad even a little bit I couldn’t hit home runs. So I gave up reading.

It’s hard to beat somebody when they don’t give up.

If I’d just tried for them dinky singles I could’ve batted around 600.

Don’t be afraid to take advice. There’s always something new to learn.

Don’t let the fear of striking out hold you back.

(Ty) Cobb is a prick. But he sure can hit. God Almighty, that man can hit.

Love the game of baseball and baseball will love you.

Wealth is always attracted, never pursued.

The only real game, I think, in the world is baseball.

Let me show you how it’s done, Loser!

You know this baseball game of ours comes up from the youth – that means the boys. And after you’ve been a boy, and grow up to know how to play ball, then you come to the boys you see representing themselves today in our national pastime.

Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.

If you want to hit home runs, you’ve go to swing a lot.

I’m not perfect. Nobody’s perfect.

That’s why I’ve gotten so much experience at my age.

You have three teachers next to you every game, and if I’m not playing, I’m watching baseball.

But I love baseball and I love to play hard.

I love the flow of the game. There’s a certain fluidity to basketball. I don’t enjoy watching baseball or football in the same way.

In my opinion I really haven’t done anything yet. I still have a lot to prove. I just want to prove to myself that I can play at the highest level of baseball in the world every day.

I hope baseball doesn’t get to the point where everyone’s saying, ‘He takes it [steroids]. He takes it. He takes it!’ because not all of us do. I’ve been big my whole life, and I’ll always be big. That’s all natural.

In baseball, it’s tough to get up for every single game, every single moment. In football, you have 90,000 fans screaming and the band’s playing. I do miss that