“A good coach must celebrate in private. He cannot gloat to the press after a victory or criticize heavily after defeat… His game is of such motivation and strategy that only a few people understand his craft.”

The point of the game is not how well the individual does, but whether the team wins. That’s the beautiful heart of the game, the blending of personalities, the mutual sacrifices for the group success.

When we engage people positively, we create a receptive platform for the ideas and information we wish to communicate.

Classic Christmas cookies are really time-consuming. Instead, make a bar you can bake in a pan and just cut up, like a brownie or a blondie or a shortbread, which still has that Christmas vibe.

Leadership is not something that is done to people, like fixing your teeth. Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.

Give to another human being without the expectation of a return.

Trying to take money out of politics is like trying to take jumping out of basketball.

I might lose because I wasn’t tall enough; I might lose because I wasn’t fast enough. But I wasn’t going to lose because I wasn’t ready.

Imagination allows us to escape the predictable. It enables us to reply to the common wisdom that we cannot soar by saying, ‘Just watch!’

A lot of people want to change the world, but only a few people want to change themselves. When it comes to the issue of race in America, we have to do both.

When you’re not practicing, someone somewhere is. And when the two of you meet, assuming roughly equal ability, the other person will win.

Tax (reform) is ultimately a decision about values.

Sports is a metaphor for overcoming obstacles and achieving against great odds. Athletes, in times of difficulty, can be important role models.

Every time I have some moment on a seashore, or in the mountains, or sometimes in a quiet forest, I think this is why the environment has to be preserved.

Basketball can serve as a kind of metaphor for ultimate cooperation. It is a sport where success, as symbolized by the championship, requires that the dictates of community prevail over selfish impulses.

Working with the UN’s diplomacy and development arms, we can prevent minor differences from escalating into wars.

When you make speeches you elicit expectations against which you will be held accountable.

At one point, I said to the officials that you guys haven’t called walking for 20 years, now you don’t know what it is. When you call walking, you’re about half right.

I feel like a lot of niggas in the rap game ain’t do what I did in these streets and a lot of niggas in the streets ain’t do what I did in the rap game.

To me, baseball is not a game, but a religion.

Have you ever seen a demonstrable example of equality in your entire life? Can it be glimpsed in any dog show or classroom? In any ping pong game or chess match? Of course not. It is a philosophical abstraction, something nowhere to be found in nature.

I think for kids it’s the most important part of the game. You have to be able to skate forward and backward, stop and start, go from side to side. Those are the basics of the game.

Basketball is a full court game, so every drill must be done full court.

You need players that stand for emotion in football. Football today is a game for television.

You are never going to be driven anywhere worthwhile, but you sure as hell drive yourself to a lot of great places. It is up to you to drive yourself there.