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.

I’m proud to play for Real Madrid because I have fun; when you no longer have fun it’s a sign that it’s time to leave. For now though, I’m happy here at the greatest club in the world.

The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.

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

I always bring out the best in men I fight, but Joe Frazier, I’ll tell the world right now, brings out the best in me. I’m gonna tell ya, that’s one helluva man, and God bless him.

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

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.

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

A lot of people tell me a lot of things about my conduct, my game, my future… but I try to stay away from their words of wisdom. I don’t let it distract me. On the field, you will be facing the ball alone. If you fail, you will the only one to blame. So, you should be the one deciding for yourself.

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

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

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

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

No one knows what to say in the loser’s locker room.

As long as I stay in training and play well, I don’t see what objection there can be to what I do off the field.

When we played softball, I’d steal second base, feel guilty and go back.

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

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

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

In the ideal world, if I was perfect, I’d be able to beat every teammate that I have, in every race.

I think that at the start of a game, you’re always playing to win, and then maybe if you’re ahead late in the game, you start playing not to lose. The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win.

To be honest, there are no problems between me and Messi. People have their own opinions about who they think is the better player. It is what it is, but there is no rivalry beyond games and what happens on the pitch.

The biggest thrill a ballplayer can have is when your son takes after you. That happened when my Bobby was in his championship Little League game. He really showed me something. Struck out three times. Made an error that lost the game. Parents were throwing things at our car and swearing at us as we drove off. Gosh, I was proud.

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.

I’m just glad I play for Coach Belichick.

I’m not the greatest; I’m the double greatest. Not only do I knock ‚em out, I pick the round.

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

I’ve always been an unselfish guy, and that’s the only way I know how to play on the court and I try to play to the maximum of my ability – not only for myself but for my teammates.

I was a very shy character, always feeling uncomfortable because everybody was stronger than I, and always afraid I would look like a sissy. Everybody else played baseball; everybody else did all kinds of athletic things.

My long hair and the sideburns made me stand out, really, because my hairstyle was completely different to the other footballers of that era.

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.

Losing is not an option in Kolkata. It’s not easy, a lot of players even quit.

The game of golf would lose a great deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green.

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.

Baseball hasn’t forgotten me. I go to a lot of old-timers games and I haven’t lost a thing. I sit in the bullpen and let people throw things at me. Just like old times.

It never bothered me when people would say, ‚You only win championships because you’re playing with Shaq.‘ It bothered me when he said it.

Rule number one is: Beat your team-mate.

I’m not going to fight because I mean too much to our team, and I can’t afford to be suspended for a game or do something stupid to get me kicked out of a playoff game.

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.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

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.

I’m a pretty good winner. I’m a terrible loser. And I rub it in pretty good when I win.

When I step forward on the floor, I have the confidence that I’m the best player playing that night and that I am the most prepared at what I need to be doing.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Your teammates give you the confidence. They give me the confidence all year, all postseason.

You must keep raising this game to higher and higher levels, as on the pool table – mastering eventually the psychological angles. Your playing is a pleasure, all the way to the end, to death, when the game is over.

One rule that will work if it is used everywhere, is that when you have a free-kick, the referee puts the mark on the floor to make sure the defenders keep their distance.

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.

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.

Once you get on the playing field it’s not about whether you’re liked or not liked. All that matters is to play at a high level and do whatever it takes to help your team win. That’s what it’s about.

Believe me, I’m much easier to be around when we win than when we lose.

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

It’s the philosophies of being an athlete that carry me today.

Ali’s got a left, Ali’s got a right – when he knocks you down, you’ll sleep for the night; and when you lie on the floor and the ref counts to ten, hope and pray that you never meet me again.

We all started playing football against our best friends, and I can’t remember a moment where, because it was my best friend, I did not want to win against him.