“My sisters like cooking at my place. It has a bit more room, and the food tastes a little bit better. A big pot of spaghetti and sauce, some warm French bread – works all the time. I think I’ve been eating pasta for 26 years.”

Everyone is dealing with something. This is life; this is not just a piece of cake. You expect that when your teammates are doing their jobs, so you got to compartmentalize and do your job.

A lot of people didn’t get to see Butler’s skills throughout the course of the season.

Every quarterback can throw a ball; every running back can run; every receiver is fast; but that mental toughness that you talk about translates into competitiveness.

I don’t care about three years ago – I don’t care about two years ago. I don’t care about last year. The only thing I care about is this week.

A lot of times I find that people who are blessed with the most talent don’t ever develop that attitude, and the ones who aren’t blessed in that way are the most competitive and have the biggest heart.

Too often in life, something happens and we blame other people for us not being happy or satisfied or fulfilled. So the point is, we all have choices, and we make the choice to accept people or situations or to not accept situations.

As athletes, we think we’re heroes, but when you witness firsthand what I saw yesterday, you realize who the real heroes are.

If you don’t play to win don’t play at all.

You can’t go out and practice average on Wednesday, average on Thursday, okay on Friday and then expect to play well on Sunday.

There’s a lot of people who don’t like Tom Brady and I’m OK with that.

I would never do anything outside of the rules of play.

On the field, you come into sync with your teammates and coaches and together you achieve something that you could never do on your own.

To me, if you’re trying to impress a girl, get a date, they’re gonna like that more because you’re a confident guy. That’s what it comes down to.

The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win.

To me, football is so much about mental toughness, it’s digging deep, it’s doing whatever you need to do to help a team win and that comes in a lot of shapes and forms.

I’ve always been privileged to play for Coach Belichick, who I’ve always said is the best coach in the history of the league.

You got to have a strong mind if you fall back. When you fall back, they going to count you out. So you got to have a strong mind and know your worth. When you come back, you’ve got to be different and even more better.

You got to want to evolve. It’s something you can practice on but it just came to me. I wasn’t really sitting there like, ‘What can I do to get better?’ It just came to me, talking to my people and my crew. They just tell me what my strongest and weakest points are at.

No one may have the guts to say this, but if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn’t we?

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake.

If somebody’s trying to shut you up, sing louder, and if possible, better.

Fame is a pearl many dive for and only a few bring up. Even when they do, it is not perfect, and they sigh for more, and lose better things in struggling for them.

No man will take counsel, but every man will take money. Therefore, money is better than counsel.

Go on failing. Go on. Only next time, try to fail better.