I have a fantastic wife, and not only in terms of external beauty. Her priority and mine is our children. That is our choice.

To play for Barcelona, means to have an opportunity for a brilliant career. But to reach the top of it, you have to play for Real Madrid.

The mistake is to imagine that perfection is possible when the very idea is unthinkable.

If the most important thing for your project is to put on a circus, then you have less chance of winning things.

As a professional football player, I have known perfectly well from the day I started playing that every day I have to fight for my place.

I really did not think much about the size of the transfer fee when I left Barcelona because it was all down to market forces, not me.

In football, day in day out, you always have to show your worth.

I'm star-struck when I see Paul Scholes because you never see him. On the pitch you can't catch him. Off the pitch he disappears.

There are some things Ronaldo can do with a football that make me touch my head and wonder how on earth he did it.

I think he [Raul] is the greatest player to have ever played the game. He walks on the turf and astounds. It is utterly amazing.

There was interest from clubs in Italy and England, I believe. But I've never been attracted by the way they play in Italy. Staying in Spain was always my preference.

Accepting that a person will die and shucking off any aversion to this blunt thought awakens the mind to realize what is possible in a human life.

God desires that through us the ones who do not know him will be convinced

The first 20 stories written about a public figure set the tone for the next 2,000 and it is almost impossible to reverse it.

If you know your ceremonies and culture you'll know where the offense takes place

The words I use too often are X-rated, something an old man like me shouldn't be talking about anyway.

When you like someone, you have to allow yourself to be vulnerable enough to let them in. Love is messy.

Love? It's good. But, as you go on living, it changes. After time passes, all gets forgotten.

The promised land guarantees nothing. It is only an opportunity, not a deliverance.

My mind shrank from the menace sweeping down on us, as children's do from belief in death and misfortune, vainly clinging to the fancy that great disasters only happen to other people.

When I was a little girl you used to learn to sew all the holes in things, darning socks, but nobody mends things anymore.