“He was a quiet man, Eric Cantona, but he was a man of few words.”

[Meeting Mandela] was the highlight of my career; to meet such a great man and a strong man and such a passionate man about sport and life will always stay with me.

I’m not silly enough to think I’m going to change the whole culture … but I do have a belief that soccer can go to a different level.

To have a successful team, you have to have great players of course – but you have to have good personalities and good people as well.

I love little kids looking up to me, young players looking up to me, respecting me.

Everyone’s been so quick to say that I’m really thick or I haven’t got a brain. People will think whatever they want to think.

My secret is practice.

It’s is always nice to be respected as a footballer. I am going to go out and enjoy the game and if I can set one or two goals up then so be it – I would love to.

Some people think that I haven’t got the brains to be that clever.

Every situation has changed me as a person.

I wasn’t as fit as I would of liked to have been, going to the World Cup, but I’m not sure what difference that made.

It’s my responsibility to walk around the hotel with a big smile on my face and not worry about what’s happened in the last game.

I’m happy in Madrid, my kids are happy and my wife is happy, so everything’s good. If anyone knows about contracts they take a while to sort out.

I like nice clothes, whether they’re dodgy or not.

I love football and I love winning, and when things aren’t going right I get annoyed.

I’m a big fan of old boots.

I still believe I have a part to play for England.

If I loved a guy as much as I love my dog, the guy would be in serious trouble because I’m all over that dog, all of the time.

You are enough, you have always been. Just not for him, but for the man meant for you.

Man peoples his current living space with a world of his own, crowded with the offspring of his fancies, desires, impulses, and passions.

Man seeks to change the foods available in nature to suit his tastes, thereby putting an end to the very essence of life contained in them.

I know that women are smarter than men. I don’t wanna sound like I’m on a bandwagon for chicks but I do love ’em, can’t front. Women are smarter than men. I know I gotta lot of chicks up my sleeve but you guys are twice as good.

Rudeness is the weak man’s limitation of strength.

Beauty is no dead thing. It is the manifestation of God in nature. There is not one object in nature untouched by man that is not beautiful, for God’s manifestation is beauty. It shines through all His works, and not only in those that may give pleasure to man.

A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.