“What’s more important than who’s going to be the first black manager is who’s going to be the first black sports editor of the New York Times.”

On females officiating in the NBA -Incompetence should not be confined to one sex.

You can do anything you want to do if you want it bad enough.

Friendship is a full-time job.

If Shakespeare can compare all of life to a stage, maybe it’s not odd to believe that part of the play can take place on a basketball court.

The most important measure of how good a game I played was how much better I’d made my teammates play.

My father once told me that anyone who worked for three dollars an hour owed it to himself to put in four dollars’ worth of work.

If you really have integrity, there are very few people who can insult you, or honor you.

Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory.

Heart in champions has to do with the depth of our motivation and how well your mind and body react to pressure – that is, being able to do what you do best under maximum pain and stress.

We learn to make a shell for ourselves when we are young and then spend the rest of our lives hoping for someone to reach inside and touch us. Just touch us-anything more than that would be too much for us to bear.

The idea is not to block every shot. The idea is to make your opponent believe that you might block every shot.

My most prized possession was my library card from the Oakland Public Library.

Don’t knock the ball in the stands, keep it in your hands!

If you can take something to levels that very few other people can reach, then what you’re doing becomes art.

To me, the most important part of winning is joy. You can win without joy, but winning that’s joyless is like eating in a four-star restaurant when you’re not hungry. Joy is a current of energy in your body, like chlorophyll or sunlight, that fills you up and makes you naturally want to do your best.

The only important statistic is the final score.

Everybody thinks when I say a guy is a good game manager, that’s a negative, but I think it’s a real positive.

The prevailing – and foolish – attitude is that a good manager can be a good manager anywhere, with no special knowledge of the production process he’s managing.

Louis van Gaal is one of the most successful managers in the world.

Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.

The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided.

As Dortmund manager, I lived in a street, and my two neighbours were Schalke fans. They showed it every day, flying flags!

I am not saying I am the best manager in the world. But I’m quite good.

I’m really a normal football manager.