I didn’t take many penalties, but I never missed one.

Sonny Liston is nothing. The man can’t talk. The man can’t fight. The man needs talking lessons. The man needs boxing lessons. And since he’s gonna fight me, he needs falling lessons.

I’ll do whatever it takes to win games, whether it’s sitting on a bench waving a towel, handing a cup of water to a teammate, or hitting the game-winning shot.

You’re not going to see my sense of humor on the football field. That’s not a place for me to joke around.

I’d be so bored if I wasn’t going out there, knowing that I could still do it. So, I’m going to work hard to be ready to go, and I still plan on playing for a long time.

If I do the right things on and off the field that’s how a player is going to learn.

To be successful, you need results in a row. You can’t win, lose, win, lose.

Justice and truth are too such subtle points that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately.

To all the positions, I just bring the determination to win. Me being an unselfish player, I think that can carry on to my teammates. When you have one of the best players on the court being unselfish, I think that transfers to the other players.

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 do the same exercises I did 50 years ago and they still work. I eat the same food I ate 50 years ago and it still works.

Obviously everybody, if you’re playing in the league, you’ve got to have somewhat of an ego about how you play the game.

Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.

In constructing the plot and working it out with the proper diction, the poet should place the scene, as far as possible, before his eyes. In this way, seeing everything with the utmost vividness, as if he were a spectator of the action, he will discover what is in keeping with it, and be most unlikely to overlook inconsistencies.

I want to consistently play well and win titles. I’m only at the beginning.

If you keep on writing for three years, every day, you should be strong. Of course, you have to be strong mentally, also. But in the first place, you have to be strong physically. That is a very important thing. Physically and mentally you have to be strong.

I’m more than comfortable just sitting back and scoring 21, 22 points or whatever and getting 10, 11 assists whatever the case might be. More than comfortable with that. It’s just a matter of the pieces that you have around you and what you can do to elevate everybody else.

I’m very much a creature of habit.

A consistent soul believes in destiny, a capricious one in chance.

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.

I was saluted by Alex Ferguson when I was subbed and that made me very happy.

We have a great group of guys that really sacrifice every night, care about each other, and try to play the right away.

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.

I try to do the fancy things out there by going with both hands, making crossover moves, and having a certain creativity and flair to my game.

Any top-level athlete, it’s always the same. There’s always that hint of arrogance there… It’s hard to be humble when you’re the best.

Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame.

I do my job like I breathe.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Talking to a player helps, but in our sport the majority of learning happens from watching another player. You pick up things like being punctual, being nice to everyone, making sure you give your 100 per cent even in training.

I didn’t mean to hit the umpire with the dirt, but I did mean to hit that bastard in the stands.

I don’t think the ebbs and flows – get in great shape and then get out of shape and then see if you can get back into shape – is a good thing. So I prefer to keep my arm always ready to go.

I’ve found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often.

I used to dream about taking the ball ‚round the keeper, stopping it on the line, and then getting on my hands and knees and heading it into the net. When I scored against Benfica in the 1968 European Cup final, I nearly did it. I left the keeper for dead, but then I chickened out.

When I looked at the third base coach, he turned his back on me.

Some people take defeat and losses a certain way. You see how some fighters take losses.

A good boxing competition gives one the sight of fine men in their prime, trained to the ounce, showing the highest skill, pluck and endurance in carrying out their attack and defence under strict rules of fair play and good temper.

The way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and then pick it up.

As a kid, even I knew everything about my favourite cricketers. I used to know everything possible. Now I see kids knowing about me. It feels good.

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

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

Before broadcasting for 50-some years, I did TV, played 10 years in the big leagues, won a world championship – and played a big part in that, too, letting the Cardinals inject me with hepatitis. Takes a big man to do that.

People think hard sparring will get you sharp. And you do get sharp in the gym. But anytime I’ve trained that way, I’ve actually been a little bit flatter in the fight. And the knockout shot hasn’t come. It’s almost because my training has been too hard.

If you’re a quarterback, you want everything on your shoulders. You want to be the one to make the decisions.

I am in the fighting game. I don’t care about anything else. I don’t watch the news, I don’t care about politics, I don’t care about other sports. I don’t care about anything I don’t need to care about. This is my sport: it is my life. I study it; I think about it all the time. Nothing else matters.

For me, the way I stay consistent is through stand-up comedy.

I’ve taken countless shots in my life, so you know the ones when you’re in rhythm, with a perfect release, and it’s on track, that it’s going in.

I sleep seven hours. If I go to bed at two, I wake up at nine. If I go to bed at midnight, I wake up at seven. I don’t wake up before – the house can fall apart, but I sleep for seven hours.

Oh, the difference between nearly right and exactly right.

Rule number one is: Beat your team-mate.

I know what I do for my team and what my teammates expect of me on both ends of the floor.

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.

Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.

I need to do well and show I’m a worthy driver in F1.

Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.

The nice thing is that when people come up to me, it’s the football they remember, not all the other rubbish.

It’s good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.

I like the celebrations when I see my teammates do it, when I see fellow footballers on the international scene do it. I think it looks good, it suits most of them, if you know what to do, synchronise, then do it.

A lot of guys are able to separate how they act off the court versus how they act on the court.

Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions.

I have two Golden Boot awards at home. It would be nice to win another, but I wouldn’t mind it if I didn’t.

I used to tease Joe Louis by reminding him that I was the greatest of all time. But Joe Louis was the greatest heavyweight fighter ever.