At ten I was playing against 18-year-old guys. At 15 I was playing professional ball with the Birmingham Black Barons, so I really came very quickly in all sports.

They throw the ball, I hit it. They hit the ball, I catch it.

It isn't hard to be good from time to time in sports. What is tough, is being good every day.

I think I was the best baseball player I ever saw.

What you are thinking, what shape your mind is in, is what makes the biggest difference of all.

In order to excel, you must be completely dedicated.

Baseball is a game, yes. It is also a business. But what is most truly is is disguised combat. For all its gentility, its almost leisurely pace, baseball is violence under wraps.

Never assume the other guy will never do something you would never do.

Every time I look at my pocketbook, I see Jackie Robinson.

Youngsters of Little League can survive undercoaching a lot better than overcoaching.

When I'm not hitting, I don't hit nobody. But, when I'm hitting, I hit anybody.

All Poets are mad.

I may not be free, but I’m not about to surrender the illusion of choice.

Important decisions are better made after a good nights sleep

Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.

I am so tired of rearranging my life around what the stupidest people might do.

One may live tranquilly in a dungeon; but does life consist in living quietly?

It's so easy to lie. What’s even worse is how we cling to those lies. We beg for the illusion so we don’t have to face the truth, don’t have to feel alone.

In high school, I was Mr. Choir Boy. I had solos, I was helping out the tenors with their parts and our choir teacher would ask me what songs we should do.

Neurosis is the result of a conflict between the ego and its id, whereas psychosis is the analogous outcome of a similar disturbance in the relation between the ego and the external world.

I’m beginning to think that you don’t find happiness from living your life looking ahead or back… that you find it when you look around.