My mother was determined to make us independent. When I was four years old, she stopped the car a few miles from our house and made me find my own way home across the fields. I got hopelessly lost.

Anything you really want, you can attain, if you really go after it.

One friend in a lifetime is much, two are many, three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.

I worked my face off.

Independence is a heady draught, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you want more.

I want to thank God, obviously for the health, for the talent He’s given me, for my family who supports me, for the things that basketball’s taught me on and off the court. For the people that I’ve been able to meet through the game of basketball.

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can’t find them, make them.

These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I’m not downplaying that.

At the age of 6, a teacher full of ambitions, who taught in the small public school of Biran, convinced my family that I should travel to Santiago de Cuba to accompany my older sister who would enter a highly prestigious convent school. Including me was a skill of that very teacher from the little school in Biran.

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.

My son’s full real name is Duncan Zowie Haywood. As a toddler, he was called by his second name Zowie. But it was such an identifiable name during the Seventies that if I called him loudly in public places, everyone would turn to stare, so I started calling him Joey to take the pressure off.

The assertion that ‚all men are created equal‘ was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.

I think the Iranians are clearly determined to have a nuclear program. And we have to assume that with a nuclear program they have the capability and the will to create a nuclear weapon.

The thornbush is the old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.

I’m convinced that no one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins.

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

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.

Working hard is very important. You’re not going to get anywhere without working extremely hard.

You have to be a bastard to make it, and that’s a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth.

Never give in – never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.

Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty.

On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit.

I love the name of honor, more than I fear death.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out.

I am not bound to please thee with my answer.

Refuse to be a lazy Christian, and resist a passive, apathetic attitude.

I didn’t have a father figure in the house.

If you work hard and play by the rules, this country is truly open to you. You can achieve anything.

The innocence of childhood is like the innocence of a lot of animals.

But if I have a lot of imagination, I could tell myself whatever I wanted, you know. I handle myself quite well. I’m kind of fascist with myself, you know. There’s no discussion. There is an order. You follow it.

I would love to continue in music, with writing… but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go gray when I am older. I don’t need to be blonde when I’m 60!

My fans saw me get engaged, saw me make that woman my wife, me having kids, me divorcing, me talking about divorce before the divorce, me talking about my kids‘ reaction to that divorce.

He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.

My mother was a full-time mother. She didn’t have much of her own career, her own life, her own experiences… everything was for her children. I will never be as good a mother as she was. She was just grace incarnate. She was the most generous, loving – she’s better than me.

Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.

You must be afraid, my son. That is how one becomes an honest citizen.

He didn’t come out of my belly, but my God, I’ve made his bones, because I’ve attended to every meal, and how he sleeps, and the fact that he swims like a fish because I took him to the ocean. I’m so proud of all those things. But he is my biggest pride.

Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.

A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.

The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.

My goals are so high that I don’t have time to relax in any way, shape or form.

I look at how my kids view exercise. They have a complete understanding that nutrition and exercise go hand in hand. I didn’t think like that when I was a kid. But they have a real consciousness about it that I’d like to think comes from the years of attention we’ve put into this.

Frustration is a sign I am acting independently. The more you try your own way, the tighter the doors will stay closed.

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one’s self?

Do whatever you will, but first be such as are able to will.

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

Mum had done everything you need to educate a kid. She made me a kid who likes books and she told me about ‚Wind in the Willows‘ and read it and I thought this is weird, Rat, Mole, Toad and my first ever Bolshie thought – you know about ‚The Wind in the Willows.‘

Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.

When you have two busy kids running around the house, returning e-mails is a task, let alone surfing the web.

It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head then to crawl on one’s belly, in order to be able to save one’s head.

You can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you’ve become yourself.

Be Prepared… the meaning of the motto is that a scout must prepare himself by previous thinking out and practicing how to act on any accident or emergency so that he is never taken by surprise.

The great thing about having a bunch of kids is they just remind you that you’re the person who takes them to go poop!

Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see.

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

I’d read up on the history of our country and I’d become fascinated with the story of the Alamo. To me it represented the fight for freedom, not just in America, but in all countries.

Experience teaches only the teachable.

Victory belongs to the most persevering.

My mother taught children to love to dance.

Feels good to try, but playing a father, I’m getting a little older. I see now that I’m taking it more serious and I do want that lifestyle.