“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.”

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.

Basketball is just a platform for me to inspire people.

I always want to win because I never want to sit out on the sidelines outside.

There’s a lot of falses – out there and if I take up for myself, it’s a bad thing. Sometimes you just got to live with it, but for the most part, I’m like look, I don’t want no problems with nobody.

I’m an old-school type of guy.

My friends are happy for me, and that’s all that matters.

Whoever want my spot can play me one-on-one for it.

I’m busy working on every aspect of my game – defense, shooting, rebounding – but I really want to become a better overall team player.

Experience is the best teacher. I’ve been through a lot – going to the Olympics, going to the Finals, having a lot of good games and having a lot of bad games. It’s a rollercoaster ride and I’m just happy I’m a part of it. If it was easy, then everybody could do it.

I’ve got a long way to go to being the ultimate best, but I think my time is now. And I’m starting to enter my prime.

I’ve just got to let my teammates know in practice, without even telling them, that I don’t think I’m ahead of anybody.

You can’t speak openly about everything.

Coaching staff: I know there’s days you look at that film and you want to kill me. I’m not playing defense, taking bad shots, getting too many techs. But you always believe that I can be the guy.

If I come to work every day and do my job, work as hard as I can, be a great teammate, the rest of that stuff will take care of itself.

Most important, they expect to bounce back and feel confident that they will.

If it’s putting on a great dance record and rocking out in your apartment, do it. If kissing someone for 10 minutes makes you feel confident, do it.

If you watch any John Hughes film of the eighties, that was my childhood experience.

I am confident that there are hedge funds, banks or investment companies that could allocate five percent of their portfolios for risky investments. In any event, for countries like Afghanistan the formation of an entrepreneurial class is of vital importance.

You don’t awaken, what has eternally been awake realizes itself. That which is eternally awake is what you are.

It will appeal to girls who are confident and have a strong personal expression of style and identity in the way that they dress and what this says about themselves.

I was like: “I’m actually doing this.” And now I feel more confident going into something.

If our animosities are born out of fear, then confident generosity is born out of hope.