Sports Quotes

If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.

The game of basketball has been everything to me. My place of refuge, place I've always gone where I needed comfort and peace. It's been the site of intense pain and the most intense feelings of joy and satisfaction. It's a relationship that has evolved over time, given me the greatest respect and love for the game.

Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.

It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.

Sometimes in football you have to score goals.

I started playing ball when I was a kid. My dad was a pro ball player and he passed on his knowledge to me.

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

We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time.

Tennis is a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquillity.

Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.

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.

If you drink don't drive. Don't even putt.

I guess there is nothing that will get your mind off everything like golf. I have never been depressed enough to take up the game, but they say you get so sore at yourself you forget to hate your enemies.

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.

Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.

Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing.

I'm a competitive person and I love the challenge of mastering new things.

The trouble with jogging is that the ice falls out of your glass.

You can't put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get.

You can make a lot of money in this game. Just ask my ex-wives. Both of them are so rich that neither of their husbands work.

Golf is a day spent in a round of strenuous idleness.

Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

He has the finest, fundamentally sound golf swing I've ever seen.

Sports do not build character. They reveal it.

I know I am getting better at golf because I am hitting fewer spectators.

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.

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.

Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.

Trying to sneak a fastball past Hank Aaron is like trying to sneak the sunrise past a rooster.

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.

Basketball is like war in that offensive weapons are developed first, and it always takes a while for the defense to catch up.

To find a man's true character, play golf with him.

Finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

Baseball happens to be a game of cumulative tension but football, basketball and hockey are played with hand grenades and machine guns.

You always get a special kick on opening day, no matter how many you go through. You look forward to it like a birthday party when you're a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen.

I want to rip out his heart and feed it to Lennox Lewis. I want to kill people. I want to rip their stomachs out and eat their children.

A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.

Give me golf clubs, fresh air and a beautiful partner, and you can keep the clubs and the fresh air.

Any time Detroit scores more than 100 points and holds the other team below 100 points they almost always win.

You know it's going to hell when the best rapper out there is white and the best golfer is black.

Champions keep playing until they get it right.

I'll let the racket do the talking.

Nobody roots for Goliath.

Gold medals aren't really made of gold. They're made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts.

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.

I'd just as soon play tennis with the net down.

Life is about timing.

I see great things in baseball. It's our game - the American game.

Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.

Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

Football is football and talent is talent. But the mindset of your team makes all the difference.

You win some, lose some, and wreck some.

If you think it's hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball.

The two most important things in life are good friends and a strong bullpen.

If a tie is like kissing your sister, losing is like kissing you grandmother with her teeth out.

I'm tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok.

Half the lies they tell about me aren't true.

God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.

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.

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.

One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than a hundred teaching it.

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.

All sports for all people.

Just be patient. Let the game come to you. Don't rush. Be quick, but don't hurry.

To me, it doesn't matter how good you are. Sport is all about playing and competing. Whatever you do in cricket and in sport, enjoy it, be positive and try to win.

Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face.

Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.

Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners, only survivors.

Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second.

In football, time and space are the same thing.

Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser.

You don't play against opponents, you play against the game of basketball.

Approach the game with no preset agendas and you'll probably come away surprised at your overall efforts.

All hockey players are bilingual. They know English and profanity.

The difference in golf and government is that in golf you can't improve your lie.

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

Nobody's a natural. You work hard to get good and then work to get better. It's hard to stay on top.

I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles.

Football is violence and cold weather and sex and college rye.

Bulls do not win bull fights. People do.

I had my boy in Boston on Easter Sunday. That kills me, from a sports perspective. He's a Boston baby and I'm a New York guy.

You can't win unless you learn how to lose.

I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out.

Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win.

Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is.

Fans don't boo nobodies.

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.

I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures.

Golf is a game in which one endeavors to control a ball with implements ill adapted for the purpose.

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.

Fishing is much more than fish. It is the great occasion when we may return to the fine simplicity of our forefathers.

If you watch a game, it's fun. If you play it, it's recreation. If you work at it, it's golf.

I am building a fire, and everyday I train, I add more fuel. At just the right moment, I light the match.

Golf is a game in which you yell 'fore,' shoot six, and write down five.

The only way to prove that you're a good sport is to lose.

Golf is a good walk spoiled.

Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.

What other people may find in poetry or art museums, I find in the flight of a good drive.