My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.
- Hank Aaron
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The triple is the most exciting play in baseball. Home runs win a lot of games, but I never understood why fans are so obsessed with them.
- Hank Aaron
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Trying to sneak a fastball past Hank Aaron is like trying to sneak the sunrise past a rooster.
- Joe Adcock
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I'll be floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.
- Muhammad Ali
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It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
- Muhammad Ali
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Basketball is like war in that offensive weapons are developed first, and it always takes a while for the defense to catch up.
- Red Auerbach
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Bulls do not win bull fights. People do.
- Norman Ralph Augustine
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The only way to prove that you're a good sport is to lose.
- Ernie Banks
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If I weren't earning $3 million a year to dunk a basketball, most people on the street would run in the other direction if they saw me coming.
- Charles Barkley
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My family got all over me because they said Bush is only for the rich people. Then I reminded them, 'Hey, I'm rich'.
- Charles Barkley
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These are my new shoes. They're good shoes. They won't make you rich like me, they won't make you rebound like me, they definitely won't make you handsome like me. They'll only make you have shoes like me. That's it.
- Charles Barkley
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You know it's going to hell when the best rapper out there is white and the best golfer is black.
- Charles Barkley
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Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face.
- Dave Barry
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Give me golf clubs, fresh air and a beautiful partner, and you can keep the clubs and the fresh air.
- Jack Benny
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You wouldn't have won if we'd beaten you.
- Yogi Berra
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Half the lies they tell about me aren't true.
- Yogi Berra
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Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.
- Ambrose Bierce
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Golf is played by twenty million mature American men whose wives think they are out having fun.
- Jim Bishop
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When I was 40, my doctor advised me that a man in his 40s shouldn't play tennis. I heeded his advice carefully and could hardly wait until I reached 50 to start again.
- Hugo L. Black
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Have you ever noticed what golf spells backwards?
- Al Boliska
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If you are going to throw a club, it is important to throw it ahead of you, down the fairway, so you don't have to waste energy going back to pick it up.
- Tommy Bolt
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Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.
- Erma Bombeck
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You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.
- Jim Bouton
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Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?
- Jim Bouton
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If a tie is like kissing your sister, losing is like kissing you grandmother with her teeth out.
- George Brett
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Sports do not build character. They reveal it.
- Heywood Broun
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You know they're not going to lose 162 consecutive games.
- Harry Caray
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One advantage of golf over bowling is that you never lose a bowling ball.
- Don Carter
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New Yorkers love it when you spill your guts out there. Spill your guts at Wimbledon and they make you stop and clean it up.
- Jimmy Carter
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Pro-rated at 500 at-bats per year, my 1,081 strike-outs would mean that for two years out of the fourteen I played, I never touched the ball.
- Norm Cash
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Nobody roots for Goliath.
- Wilt Chamberlain
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I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles.
- Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Nobody's a natural. You work hard to get good and then work to get better. It's hard to stay on top.
- Paul Coffey
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Any time Detroit scores more than 100 points and holds the other team below 100 points they almost always win.
- Doug Collins
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I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out.
- Rodney Dangerfield
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Golf and sex are the only things you can enjoy without being good at them.
- Jimmy DeMaret
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The difference in golf and government is that in golf you can't improve your lie.
- George Deukmejian
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Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.
- Dan Duva
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You win some, lose some, and wreck some.
- Dale Earnhardt
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He hits it long. His shoulders are impressively quick through the ball. That's where he's getting his power from. He's young and has great elasticity.
- Nick Faldo
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'Twas Game Six of the Series when out of the sky, Flew Sergio's parachute, a Met banner held high. His goal was to spur our home team to success, Burst Beantown's balloon claiming Sox were the best.
- Phyllis Orlikoff Flug
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I had pro offers from the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers, who were pretty hard up for linemen in those days. If I had gone into professional football the name Jerry Ford might have been a household word today.
- Gerald R. Ford
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I know I am getting better at golf because I am hitting fewer spectators.
- Gerald R. Ford
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I'd just as soon play tennis with the net down.
- Robert Frost
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I went through baseball as "a player to be named later."
- Joe Garagiola
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One thing you learned as a Cubs fan: when you bought you ticket, you could bank on seeing the bottom of the ninth.
- Joe Garagiola
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Nolan Ryan is pitching much better now that he has his curve ball straightened out.
- Joe Garagiola
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Baseball is drama with an endless run and an ever-changing cast.
- Joe Garagiola
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The difference between the old ballplayer and the new ballplayer is the jersey. The old ballplayer cared about the name on the front. The new ballplayer cares about the name on the back.
- Steve Garvey
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It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.
- A. Bartlett Giamatti
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Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners, only survivors.
- Frank Gifford
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Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
- Frank Gifford
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The only time my prayers are never answered is on the golf course.
- Billy Graham
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Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.
- Robert Graves
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You miss 100% of the shots you never take.
- Wayne Gretzky
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A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.
- Wayne Gretzky
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Golf is a game in which you yell "fore," shoot six, and write down five.
- Paul Harvey
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The game of golf would lose a great deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green.
- Ernest Hemingway
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Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing.
- Ben Hogan
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Why that would be like challenging Bing Crosby to a singing contest,wouldn't it?
- Ben Hogan
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As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round.
- Ben Hogan
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Golf is not a game of good shots. It's a game of bad shots.
- Ben Hogan
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The only thing a golfer needs is more daylight.
- Ben Hogan
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I play golf with friends sometimes, but there are never friendly games.
- Ben Hogan
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I couldn't wait for the sun to come up the next morning so that I could get out on the course again.
- Ben Hogan
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Relax? How can anybody relax and play golf? You have to grip the club, don't you?
- Ben Hogan
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If we could have just screwed another head on his shoulders, he would have been the greatest golfer who ever lived.
- Ben Hogan
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I'm glad I brought this course, this monster, to its knees.
- Ben Hogan
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Fishing is much more than fish. It is the great occasion when we may return to the fine simplicity of our forefathers.
- Herbert Hoover
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If you watch a game, it's fun. If you play it, it's recreation. If you work at it, it's golf.
- Bob Hope
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People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.
- Rogers Hornsby
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I don't want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it.
- Rogers Hornsby
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All hockey players are bilingual. They know English and profanity.
- Gordie Howe
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People think baseball players make $3 million and $4 million a year. They don't realize that most of us only make $500,000.
- Pete Incaviglia
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You can't win unless you learn how to lose.
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
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Fans don't boo nobodies.
- Reggie Jackson
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I gave it my body and mind, but I have kept my soul.
- Phil Jackson
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The will to win is worthless if you don't get paid for it.
- Reggie Jackson
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If you meet the Buddha in the lane, feed him the ball.
- Phil Jackson
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Approach the game with no preset agendas and you'll probably come away surprised at your overall efforts.
- Phil Jackson
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Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart.
- Phil Jackson
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Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.
- Phil Jackson
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Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second.
- William James
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I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
- Michael Jordan
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I never looked at the consequences of missing a big shot... when you think about the consequences you always think of a negative result.
- Michael Jordan
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I can accept failure, but I can't accept not trying.
- Michael Jordan
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Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.
- Michael Jordan
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As athletes, we're used to reacting quickly. Here, it's 'come, stop, come, stop.' There's a lot of downtime. That's the toughest part of the day.
- Michael Jordan
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If you're trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I've had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
- Michael Jordan
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A major league baseball team is a collection of 25 youngish men who have made the major leagues and discovered that in spite of it, life remains distressingly short of ideal.
- Roger Kahn
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Football is violence and cold weather and sex and college rye.
- Roger Kahn
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Basketball, hockey and track meets are action heaped upon action, climax upon climax, until the onlooker's responses become deadened. Baseball is for the leisurely afternoons of summer and for the unchanging dreams.
- Roger Kahn
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I was showing early symptoms of becoming a professional baseball man. I was lying to the press.
- Roger Kahn
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Horse racing is animated roulette.
- Roger Kahn
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Boxing is smoky halls and kidneys battered until they bleed.
- Roger Kahn
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Tennis and golf are best played, not watched.
- Roger Kahn
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Is it normal to wake up in the morning in a sweat because you can't wait to beat another human's guts out?
- Joe Kapp
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Tennis is a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquillity.
- Billie Jean King
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Champions keep playing until they get it right.
- Billie Jean King
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You don't play against opponents, you play against the game of basketball.
- Bobby Knight
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I have lost this battle but I will win the war.
- Anna Kournikova
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Football is an incredible game. Sometimes it's so incredible, it's unbelievable.
- Tom Landry
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There are two theories on hitting the knuckleball. Unfortunately, neither of them works.
- Charlie Lau
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If you think it's hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball.
- Jack Lemmon
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The two most important things in life are good friends and a strong bullpen.
- Bob Lemon
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Perhaps the single most important element in mastering the techniques and tactics of racing is experience. But once you have the fundamentals, acquiring the experience is a matter of time.
- Greg LeMond
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You don't suffer, kill yourself and take the risks I take just for money. I love bike racing.
- Greg LeMond
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Baseball happens to be a game of cumulative tension but football, basketball and hockey are played with hand grenades and machine guns.
- John Leonard
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I play in the low 80s. If it's any hotter than that, I won't play.
- Joe E. Lewis
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Life is about timing.
- Carl Lewis
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My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: "Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you'll win... channel your energy. Focus."
- Carl Lewis
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The hardest thing to believe about The Fan is not that Robert De Niro is stalking somebody again but that anyone cares that much about a baseball player.
- Bernie Lincicome
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If you can react the same way to winning and losing, that's a big accomplishment... quality is important because it stays with you the rest of your life, and there's going to be a life after tennis that's a lot longer than your tennis life.
- Chris Evert Lloyd
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Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser.
- Vince Lombardi
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Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
- Vince Lombardi
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If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score?
- Vince Lombardi
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We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time.
- Vince Lombardi
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Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.
- Vince Lombardi
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Winners never quit and quitters never win.
- Vince Lombardi
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Winning is not everything, but wanting to win is.
- Vince Lombardi
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It is almost impossible to remember how tragic a place the world is when one is playing golf.
- Robert Lynd
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The fewer rules a coach has, the fewer rules there are for players to break.
- John Madden
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If you drink don't drive. Don't even putt.
- Dean Martin
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Tiger is the best athlete that this level of golf has seen. He's lean, he's strong, his swing is marvelous.
- Buddy Marucci
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I couldn't see the ball come off the club for the first 27 holes. It came off the club that fast.
- Buddy Marucci
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He hits the ball a long way and he knows how to win.
- Gary McCord
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He's in the mold of a Tom Watson, in that he'll hit the ball in the trees and undaunted go it there, flail it out and make something out of it.
- Gary McCord
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He's got an overall flair for the game. It looks to me like he really loves what he does and he can't wait to get up in the morning, go hit some balls and go play.
- Gary McCord
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I'll let the racket do the talking.
- John McEnroe
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I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf.
- Tug McGraw
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I don't know why people question the academic training of an athlete. Fifty percent of the doctors in this country graduated in the bottom half of their classes.
- Al McGuire
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The trouble with jogging is that the ice falls out of your glass.
- Martin Mull
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Baseball is a game where a curve is an optical illusion, a screwball can be a pitch or a person, stealing is legal and you can spit anywhere you like except in the umpire's eye or on the ball.
- Jim Murray
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There isn't a flaw in his golf or his makeup. He will win more majors than Arnold Palmer and me combined. Somebody is going to dust my records. It might as well be Tiger, because he's such a great kid.
- Jack Nicklaus
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He has the finest, fundamentally sound golf swing I've ever seen.
- Jack Nicklaus
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He's going to be around a long, long time, if his body holds up. That's always a concern with a lot of players because of how much they play. A lot of guys can't handle it. But it looks like he can.
- Jack Nicklaus
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What's a good tournament for him? Winning it. He's good enough.
- Greg Norman
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I'm tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok.
- Shaquille O'Neal
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If you got the game, you got the game. That's why Tiger Woods is out there playing golf with Greg Norman.
- Shaquille O'Neal
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Boxing has become America's tragic theater.
- Joyce Carol Oates
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Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.
- George Orwell
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A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.
- Jesse Owens
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Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.
- Satchel Paige
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What other people may find in poetry or art museums, I find in the flight of a good drive.
- Arnold Palmer
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Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.
- Blaise Pascal
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Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold.
- Joseph Chilton Pearce
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The first time I ever saw Arnold Palmer, I said, "There's a star." The first time I saw Jack Nicklaus, I said, "Superstar." I feel the same way about Tiger Woods.
- Gary Player
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