“Whatever you want to do, do with full passion and work really hard towards it. Don’t look anywhere else. There will be a few distractions, but if you can be true to yourself, you will be successful for sure.”

I always dreamt of holding the bat and winning games for India. That was my inspiration to take up cricket.

It undoubtedly feels nice when you are being appreciated and you get complimented by girls. Who doesn’t like that? Having said that, I don’t take it as any pressure.

Never at any point did I feel like missing a training session. I was very keen on improving as a cricketer and as an international player.

When you absolutely love what you do, everything just flows.

The more centuries that I am able to score, the happier I will be.

The bat is not a toy, it’s a weapon. It gives me everything in life, which helps me to do everything on the field.

Remember who you are and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

Nothing extraordinary happens to a cricketer if you time his career – which is very short.

In the game of cricket, a hero is a person who respects the game and does not corrupt the game. The one who doesn’t or corrupts the game, they are the villain. They should be punished, and they have been punished in the past.

Self-belief and hard work will always earn you success.

I want to be relaxed in my personal life. I really don’t like to be hassled.

Real fun is in a real challenge.

I don’t really focus on these things – on what tags are given to me or what people think of me off the field – stuff like that. My main focus is always to do well on the field for the Indian cricket team. When people say good things about me off the field, I am more than happy to accept them.

People from North India are generally known to be aggressive and emotional.

In the end, it’s you who you have to answer to.

I always had a sense of discipline in me. However, there was a time when I couldn’t divide my time properly between off-field things and on-field assignments. The focus would be missing at times, and that would affect my preparation for matches. I managed to change that.

Slowing down doesn’t mean accomplishing less; it means cutting out counterproductive distractions and the perception of being rushed.

Every moment of happiness was just a distraction from myself.

You have a number of choices. You could continue to always fight against people who are really distractions. They’re people in the cheap seats of life. Or you can do what you went there to do.

I knew he was the one when all he saw was my soul. The rest was just distraction.

In T20, you don’t have time to get distracted – it’s so quick, you have to run around in the field, and while batting, you don’t actually think about anything else.

Distracted from distraction by distraction

Attachment of anything is the distraction of everything.

Comparison is a distraction from our inner creativity.⁣