I am not a dreamer. I am a football romantic.

I was a Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan fan growing up.

The joy of doing well as a batsman for your country is much more than that little joy of going for a party and enjoying music. It is a completely different high, and I get high by performances. That’s what I enjoy now.

Sectional football games have the glory and the despair of war, and when a Texas team takes the field against a foreign state, it is an army with banners.

The more minutes you play and the more grind and physical play you endure through the course of a season, you have to re-charge and get your body right for the next season. Be in that weight room and conditioning and that kind of deal.

To share the dressing room of club and country with Bhai was an amazing experience. I learnt a lot from him and other senior players like Renedy Singh.

In England, when an athlete gets to the top, we do our best to destroy him.

In football, I don’t have a lot of friends. The people who I really trust, there are not many… Most of the time, I’m alone.

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.

I signed for Mohun Bagan and then I got the news that Bhaichung also joined the club. The first day he met me he told me that I have heard about you and you are doing well. I told everyone in my family and friends that Bhaichung told me that.

Playing basketball all my life, I’ve collected a lot of different basketball shoes. It’s pretty much all I wear.

I’ve thought sometimes about what I like about football, and it’s playing together.

WIth football you can have up to 28 guys you consider starters, and if they can pick up the slack when some aren’t playing so well, you don’t have to turn those two game losing streaks into six-game losing streaks.

I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.

I had a good time boxing. I enjoyed it – and I may come back.

Liverpool is a club with a big, big, big history, and all the clubs in the world have a big history if the present is not too successful. If you have never had success, then nobody knows how it is, but in Liverpool, everybody knows how it was.

Shinji Kagawa is one of the best players in the world, and he now plays 20 minutes at Manchester United – on the left wing! My heart breaks. Really, I have tears in my eyes. Central midfield is Shinji’s best role.

I’m a romantic; a sentimental person thinks things will last, a romantic person hopes against hope that they won’t.

You can sometimes play some really good football and not score.

I’ve been so blessed to play for the greatest coach at a time when our organization has done incredible things. I’ve played with the best teammates. Playing for Mr. Kraft and what his influence on the team has been.

I have really been disillusioned with soccer in England.

I do understand it’s not easy to run an I-league club. I have been part of many and I know the scene.

I had practiced with the team, and the first scheduled game was with the University of Missouri. They made it quite clear to the Army that they would not play a team with a black player on it. Instead of telling me the truth, the Army gave me leave to go home.

Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he’s losing; nobody wants you to quit when you’re ahead.

Everyone loves a win in India. No one wants to lose a match. It is the cricketer who absorbs all the pressure.

Men like a ref decision because they just want to get back to the game.

Bobby Knight told me this: ‚There is nothing that a good defense cannot beat a better offense.‘ In other words a good offense wins.

I see myself as the best footballer in the world. If you don’t believe you are the best, then you will never achieve all that you are capable of.

One reason I don’t want to play in England again is because we don’t have any personalities.

Well, I mean, to me, I think my ultimate – my ultimate goal is winning championships and – and I understand that me going down as one of the greats will not happen until I, you know, win a championship.

Every season is a new challenge to me, and I always set out to improve in terms of games, goals, assists.

Whoever the coach is, my job is to talk to him, understand him and be a better player under him and give my best.

Shooting the ball is a part of the game. Everybody can shoot in their own way. Not everybody can make. But everybody can shoot.

When I won the Golden Gloves in 1960, that made me realize I had a chance. And when I won at the Olympics, that sealed it: I was the champ.

I think my top salary was maybe in 1966. I made $17,000 and 11 of that came from selling other players‘ equipment.

You can’t score if you’re turning it over. It’s like a punt. If you go out and you punt 12 times, you’re not scoring points. That’s not good. So, when you turn the ball over and throw interceptions, you’re giving the other team more opportunities and your team less opportunities.

I don’t think a coach becomes the right coach until he wins a championship.

Cobb is a prick. But he sure can hit. God Almighty, that man can hit.

Politics is like football; if you see daylight, go through the hole.

Maybe the ones burning my jersey were never LeBron fans anyway.

Like a baseball game, wars are not over till they are over. Wars don’t run on a clock like football. No previous generation was so hopelessly unrealistic that this had to be explained to them.

When I was a kid, I never thought much about football. I thought about following in my family’s footsteps and going into professional wrestling.

What the ISL has done is create the hype and buzz around football that it very badly needs.

That’s what you live for as a sportsman. You have to put up a fight.

I don’t think there’s been anything in the game of football in my lifetime that has changed college football more than redshirting.

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.

Sometimes in the past when I played something might make me lose focus, or I would go home after a game where I thought I could have played better and I would let it hang over my head for a long time when it shouldn’t.

Everybody asks if putting is like shooting free throws. It has a very similar kind of mindset. And it’s just you, the ball, and the target.

I was a very average player and became a trainer in Germany with a special club.

I had no future with the Dodgers, because I was too closely identified with Branch Rickey. After the club was taken over by Walter O’Malley, you couldn’t even mention Mr. Rickey’s name in front of him. I considered Mr. Rickey the greatest human being I had ever known.

All my life, I’ve been trying to make a hole-in-one. The closest I’ve come is a bogey.

I’m committed to the fight game.

Baseball changes through the years. It gets milder.

I was 19 or 20 when The Beatles were at their peak, and I was coming up to the peak of my career, too. I was also the first footballer to have long hair, and that’s how I got my nickname ‚the Fifth Beatle.‘

I love soccer, love tennis… Roger Federer has been a favourite for a long, long time. The kind of consistency he has shown, 16 Grand Slam titles… The way he handles himself in pressure situations is admirable… He is so calm… In soccer, I’m a huge fan of Barcelona… I like watching Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and David Villa.

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

Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.

There have been so many great players that I’ve played with, that I’ve played against over the years.

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

Lots of young players have triumphed at United, so why can’t it happen to me? I’m not worried I’m young – it’s an incentive to do the best I can.

The old Dodgers were something special, but of my teammates overall, there was nobody like Pee Wee Reese for me.