“My experience over 17 years playing with the Yankees, these are a few of the things that I’ve learned. You’ve got to have a plan of action, You have to stay focused on the things you can control, and don’t get discouraged or distracted by the things you cannot control.”

When my Yankee career is over I’ll play anywhere, but I’m positive that I’ll never find a team quite like the Yankees.

I have played professional baseball for over half my life. From the time I picked up a baseball glove, I did not want to put it down.

I know the good Lord wouldn’t give me any more than I can handle, but I sure wish he wouldn’t have so much confidence in me.

Don’t be afraid to take risks. Make the most of your journey. Make it fun and exciting.

I had a good run here, fifteen years. That’s a great run. I’m not saying that I’m done in center field – if I could play there forever, I would. But I know that’s not reality, so I’m happy.

My job is to make myself available to play to the best of my ability. Mentally, I’ve got to stay ready to play every day.

It is impossible to remain indifferent to Japanese culture. It is a different civilisation where all you have learnt must be forgotten.

The trick is to learn a positive lesson from all of life’s negative moments.

Unnatural to expect that learning to be happy should be any easier than, say, learning to play the violin or require any less practice.

Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.

There may be significant things to learn about people by looking at what annoys them most.

Or try out what I learned and see how it worked with an audience, because where are you gonna get an audience?

I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.

I do original songs in the style of other artists, where I try to learn all their musical idiosyncrasies and try to do something that sounds like them and yet is a bit more sick and twisted.