“Health is the most critical thing in our life. With your health anything is possible, without it you can’t do anything.”

I like a lot of other music and listen to a lot of other music, but one of the greatest things about the Grateful Dead is they played all the time.

I went to my first show [of the Grateful Dead], got right up front and never left. The incredible excitement, the family, the spirit, the hope, the happiness, all the different things I love and live for in life are there.

There are no guarantees in life. The simple twists of fate and the breaks of the game are the two maxims that define so much of the success and failure in life.

I might be the most injured athlete in the history of sports. I’ve had 31 operations. An endless string of stress fractures.

What a pathetic play from a pathetic human being.

Tim Duncan’s foot issue, I think, is a major factor in this year’s playoffs. That’s not the kind of injury that gets better over time playing NBA basketball.

Basketball is one of those rare opportunities where you can make a difference, not only for yourself, but for other people as well.

The passions I have in my life are my family, music, books, I’m an avid plant collector, and I love to ride my bike.

I can think. I can sleep. I can move. I can ride my bike. I can dream.

It’s the most pleasurable experience in the world! When you’re on a great team and you get hot, your teammates milk you dry – they wear you out and there’s nothing like being on a great team.

I learned early on the value and the power of music to inspire and to drive me.

That’s what makes it so fun to be on a team. You’re sitting at your house, thinking up this wild, crazy stuff as to how it’s going to go, and the other guys are sitting at their houses doing the same thing.

I’m mainstream. Always have been.

I grew up in an non-athletic family, where my parents were interested in music, in literature, in education and art.

Anytime you bring Michael Olowokandi on to your team, disaster is soon to follow.

Yao Ming is the best thing to happen to the NBA in a long time. He is just a beautiful person inside and out. The vision, the creativity, the gentleness of spirit … he has it all.

When you feel good in a clothing anything can happen.

People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust.

You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.

Anything I would do, I would have to be me. That is how it would work.

If a man is to be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most.

Life has no plot. It is by far more interesting than anything you can say about it.

If you don’t have time to do it right you must have time to do it right you must have time to do it over. If you don’t know where you are going, how do you know when you get there? If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.

I wish I could make you see how much fuller the life I offer you is than anything you have a conception of.