“The soldiers that didn’t come back were the heroes. It’s a roll of the dice. If a bullet has your name on it, you’re a hero. If you hear a bullet go by, you’re a survivor.”

I was heaving a baseball into his mitt behind the barn… If all the parents in the country followed his rule, juvenile delinquency would be cut in half in a year’s time.

Sympathy is something that shouldn’t be bestowed on the Yankees. Apparently it angers them.

Though there is growing division among the Ukrainian military ranks as to loyalty in this revolution, the possibility of violence looms over the entire situation.

If you believe your catcher is intelligent and you know that he has considerable experience, it is a good thing to leave the game almost entirely in his hands.

Where the ball went was up to heaven. Sometimes I threw the ball clean up into the stands.

Life is full of painful events, and people who have lost their way and hurt others. Our pain is not lessened when we respond with hatred. In fact, the opposite occurs:

I would rather beat the Yankees regularly than pitch a no hit game.

You can talk about teamwork on a baseball team, but I’ll tell you, it takes teamwork when you have 2,900 men stationed on the U.S.S. Alabama in the South Pacific.

Nowadays, they have more trouble packing hair dryers than baseball equipment.

My father loved baseball and he cultivated my talent. I don’t think he ever had any doubt in his mind that I would play professional baseball someday.

Trying to sneak a fastball by Ted Williams was like trying to sneak a sunbeam by a rooster in the morning.

As much as we disliked the Yankees, fans and players alike, they were good for baseball. They consistently unsuccessful teams like the Browns, Senators, and A’s paid a lot of their bills with those big crowds that poured through the gates when the Yankees came to town.

Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday’s success or put its failures behind and start over again. That’s the way life is, with a new game every day, and that’s the way baseball is.

Baseball is only a game, a game of inches and a lot of luck. During a time of all-out war, sports are very insignificant.

You figure they cheat at the ballpark, they’ll cheat on the golf course, they’ll cheat in business, and anything else in life. Players may laugh about it and say it’s funny, but right down in their heart, they don’t think it’s funny at all, and they have no respect for a person who cheats.

The validity of a tax depends upon its nature, and not upon its name.

Aggression is simply another name for government. Aggression, invasion, government, are interconvertible terms. The essence of government is control, or the attempt to control.

When you name yourself, you always name another.

The more the media peddled fear, the more the people lost the ability to believe in one another. For every new ill that befell them, the media created an explanation, and the explanation always had a face and a name.

I don’t care about how I look; I’m dedicated to the laughs. You know, I used to be a clown, so – my name was Smoothie the Clown. All the training I had, all my training is geared toward making people laugh, and I didn’t care about being cool.

A name? Oh, Jesus Christ. Ah, God, I’ve been called by a million names all my life. I don’t want a name. I’m better off with a grunt or a groan for a name.

This laudable quality is commonly known by the name of Manners and Good-breeding, and consists in a Fashionable Habit, acquir’d by Precept and Example, of flattering the Pride and Selfishness of others, and concealing our own with Judgment and Dexterity.

[W]here there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community.