“You sacrificed for us – you’re the real MVP.”

How I grew up, everybody was telling me, “You can’t do this, you can’t get tattoos, you’ve got to look a certain way.” Now, I’m like, “Why?”

I love playing it, I just never thought I’d make it to college, NBA, or be standing up here today. It is a surreal feeling. So many people doubted me and motivated me.

I probably play games more than I practice.

Every memory I have from when I was a kid involves basketball.

So many people doubted me. They motivated me every single day, to be, who I am.

If I’d gone straight to the NBA, I don’t think I would have been ready as a player or a person.

You know, I don’t want to stand out too much.

I pray for you every night. You’ve taught me to feel confident in myself, believe in myself that I can do it when I didn’t think I could do it.

I can score the basketball, but I think I can pass pretty well or I can make the correct pass.

I’ve heard a few times, in three or four years, this league is going to be yours. I don’t like that. Because I think I’m established now.

I was just a big fan of tattoos always growing up, and I wanted something cool that symbolizes what I’ve been through in my life, and everything on my chest and my back is like a collage.

I’m like a chameleon. I adapt to my situation. It’s very slowed down here. I like it that way. I’m a guy that’s very reserved, quiet and shy myself.

I just want to grow spiritually with the Lord.

My acting coach I’ve got here, Richard Lawson, he’s been doing good, just telling me to calm down sometimes and just be me.

I want the younger kids, the basketball players in high school and college to hear from me and let them know that when you come to the league, this is what happens and this is how I feel as an NBA player. And it’s not all peachy keen.

With everything I do, I just try to be myself.

It is important to express oneself…provided the feelings are real and are taken from you own experience.

More than anything, people want the reality of the discussion at hand. If what is going on in that building is the real thing, if the transforming love and power of Jesus Christ is being experienced, you can sit on a metal folding chair or in a plush theater seat.

What passes for real debate in Washington often seems more like an echo chamber, with politicians talking at politicians.

We tend to take a great deal for granted, because you feel like you’re going to live forever. It’s only if you lose a friend, or maybe have a near-death experience, [that] many events and people in your life suddenly attain real significance.

Golf is my real profession. Entertainment is just a sideline. I tell jokes to pay my greens fees.

We also have to engage – and I think this is important – in national politics because there is no way to address questions of this scale in the short time that we have to address them without engaging in real political change.

Gee, I certainly hope I’m not a scary person in real life. It’s not like people run from me when they see me. People are usually pretty nice when they meet me. If they’re scared, they keep their shuddering to themselves.

All your beliefs, they’re just that. They’re nothing. They’re how you were taught and raised. That doesn’t make ’em real.