“There are one hundred and ninety nine ways to get beat, but only one way to win; get there first.”

Desire is the most important factor in the success of any athlete.

I have always believed that anybody with a little guts and the desire to apply himself can make it, can make anything he wants to make of himself.

If Jack Nicklaus can win the Masters at 46, I can win the Kentucky Derby at 54.

I had a premonition when I was nine that I’d marry Leonardo DiCaprio.

My mother was one of seven girls whose parents went to bed hungry so their children wouldn’t. My father lost his mother when he was nine. He left school and went to work for the next 70 years. They emigrated to America with little more than the hope of a better life.

How do you know love is gone? If you said that you would be there at seven and you get there by nine, and he or she has not called the police yet – it’s gone.

Back of ninety-nine out of one-hundred assertions that a thing cannot be done is nothing, but the unwillingness to do it.

In nine lifetimes, you’ll never know as much about your cat as your cat knows about you.

Ninety-nine percent of who you are is invisible and untouchable.

When I was nine years old, living on the south side of Chicago, my father was a minister and my mother used to scrub floors.

I sleep nine hours every night, I have a little nap after lunch, and, if I’m going out for dinner, I sneak in an extra one before I head out.