“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.

There has never been a great athlete who died not knowing what pain is.

When conflicts do break out, UN peacekeepers should play a role in defusing and settling them. Without giving up our sovereignty, we can help the UN with better training and better command and control in order to develop more effective peacekeeping forces.

The only way to be true to our American tradition is to maintain absolute governmental neutrality regarding religious beliefs and practices

Leaders should be collaborative, modest, and generous

When the playing is over, one can sense that one’s youth has been spent playing a game, and now both the game and youth are gone.

I like the rough impersonality of New York … Human relations are oiled by jokes, complaints, and confessions-all made with the assumption of never seeing the other person again.

We realized that no one of us could be as good as all of us playing unselfishly.

If you have the courage and you have the heart, that hero just might be you.

Life insurance is time. The time a man might not have. If he needs time, he needs life insurance.

I thought anything might happen if I wasn’t vigilant. I didn’t eat. I didn’t go out. I didn’t want to see anyone. But I survived, Paul.

But Buddy was an upper. He was happy. He loved music, and he was really happy. I don’t know…

Don’t ever turn down pleasure because you were afraid of what other people might say.

I realised that one might love him secretly with no hope of encouragement, which can be very enjoyable for the young or inexperienced.

I know that it is impossible to talk about my work. And since it’s impossible for me or anybody else to talk about my work, I feel I might as well talk about it.

If the Bible didn’t show us the weaknesses, the vulnerabilities, the sins of our heroes, we might have deep questions about their true virtue.