My biggest competitor was my mum. I used to try to beat her at Chinese chequers, chess, carrom, volleyball, badminton, football, wrestling.

When my first semester grades came out, my mom and dad told me I wouldn’t be playing football.

I used to live with my grandmother. I used to wonder why the other kids in school went home with their mothers and fathers. I wanted to be the guy that got married. I wanted to be the guy with the children and the white picket fence. I never had that.

I believe everyone should have a good death. You know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. Because after all, tears are appropriate on a death bed. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.

If you made me the national commissioner of football, I’d tell you one thing that I would mandate. The second Saturday in September, we’re going to have conference day. Everybody from the SEC plays a Big 12 team. Everybody from the Big Ten is going to play the ACC. Everybody from the Big East is going to play the Pac-10.

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.

I think your values are always influenced by your family and your community.

Marriage is a school itself. Also, having children. Becoming a father changed my whole life. It taught me as if by revelation.

My family kinda hit the skids. We were experiencing poverty at that point. We all got a job, where the whole family had to work as security guards and janitors. And I just got angry.

I used to carry my father’s Bible and put it on the pulpit so he could preach.

There’s nothing better than having a baby. I’ve always loved children. I used to work summers at the YMCA and be in charge of, like, 30 preschool kids. I knew that when I had a child, I’d be overwhelmed, and it’s true… I can’t tell you how much my attitude has changed since we’ve got Frances. Holding my baby is the best drug in the world.

At the start of the season, there are 16 teams in the top division looking behind them, making sure they avoid relegation. The fear starts in the boardroom, comes down to managers and through to players. The fans sense it.

Volleyball, I could be pretty good. After a few practices I could be that striker, or whatever they call it.

In England, you have stadiums in the middle of the city.

Maybe there is no actual place called hell. Maybe hell is just having to listen to our grandparents breathe through their noses when they’re eating sandwiches.

The more the division of labor and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together.

My family has very strong women. My mother never laughed at my dream of Africa, even though everyone else did because we didn’t have any money, because Africa was the ‚dark continent‘, and because I was a girl.

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.

More than anything else, I want the folks back at home to think right of me.

Returning to your family and where you came from, and your history… this is what makes you strong. It’s not looking out that’s going to do that – it’s looking in.

What’s so beautiful about Miami is that we support each other. We’re just one big family, not just the entertainers, just everyone in general.

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.

If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.

I always thought about working in England because of the kind of football, the intensity of football. Liverpool was first choice.

Football is a game you cannot play without making mistakes.

Often people become our friend or follower with an undercurrent of resentment in our having more success than they have. They secretly desire the opportunity to take us down a notch; they have a nose for any misstep on our part they can exploit.

I don’t like Los Angeles. The people are awful and terribly shallow, and everybody wants to be famous but nobody wants to play the game. I’m from New York. I will kill to get what I need.

I want kids. I want a soccer team, and I want a husband.

As I got older, my pops tried to keep me involved with the culture by telling me the stories of the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, how he came to America, and about our family back home, because all that side of my family – my aunties, grandparents – is in Africa.

I would as soon leave my son a curse as the almighty dollar.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

If you are surrounded by your competition and you are outworking these people, outmaneuvering these people, it’s hard not to let your confidence take over. It just builds and builds and builds.

I played football for a team called the East Dragons on the east side of town. We only had six regular season games. And six games I played tail back and I had 18 touchdowns in six games. That’s when I knew I had some athletic ability.

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!

First and foremost comes my family and my life with Brad. We have so much joy in raising our children and teaching them about the world that nothing really compares to that.

I failed to make the chess team because of my height.

Yes, Mother. I can see you are flawed. You have not hidden it. That is your greatest gift to me.

If thy brother wrongs thee, remember not so much his wrong-doing, but more than ever that he is thy brother.

I am sure as everyone knows that I am not the happiest if I don’t do a good job in qualifying or the race.

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see – or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.

Winning the title in England is the biggest challenge of them all.

The next MVP of the Super Bowl is just as likely to have been a full-time grocery store bagger last year as a Heisman Trophy winner.

Do your job. Do it the best you can. Do it right, because somebody, sometimes your best friend, is waiting for you to screw up so she can take your place.

I am proud to have been born in Iowa. Through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy, it was a place of adventure and daily discoveries – the wonder of the growing crops, the excitements of the harvest, the journeys to the woods for nuts and hunting, the joys of snowy winters, the comfort of the family fireside, of good food and tender care.

If someone told me I could play two Asian Cup finals, I wouldn’t have believed it.

Well, we know that people in Australia love the idea of both Impulse and Virgin Blue getting up and adding a bit of competition, and it’s fun to be able to deliver it.

We lived in a tall, narrow Victorian house, which my parents had bought very cheaply during the war, when everyone thought London was going to be bombed flat. In fact, a V-2 rocket landed a few houses away from ours. I was away with my mother and sister at the time, but my father was in the house.

I enjoy competition. I enjoy challenges. If a challenge is in front of me and it appeals to me, I will go ahead and conquer it.

It obviously bothers people when Real Madrid win. It makes them jealous. There isn’t a level playing field.

What really motivates people at Facebook is building something that’s worthwhile, that they’re going to be proud to show to friends and family.

I can hold my own when it comes to burping. I’ve got a good feeling that I could win a championship.

My work and my family are very important to me.

Competition is not only the basis of protection to the consumer, but is the incentive to progress.

If you’re entering anything where there’s an existing marketplace, against large, entrenched competitors, then your product or service needs to be much better than theirs. It can’t be a little bit better, because then you put yourself in the shoes of the consumer… you’re always going to buy the trusted brand unless there’s a big difference.

We murdered them 0-0.

I still love football, though, and I think cooking is like football. It’s not a job, it’s a passion. When you become good at it, it’s a dream job and financially you need never to worry. Ever.

I’m a fighter, I’m a winner, and I’m not interested in just battling my team-mate for the back of the grid.

I’ve done a number of Super Bowl ads. And that is the best advertising of the year. That is when people realize they’re going to be compared directly against other ads.

To win a national championship, you’ve got to be a little lucky.

What is Champions League level? I saw a lot of rubbish games at Champions League level.

In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own.