I spent 34 months on the battleship Alabama, South Dakota-class. I was a gun captain. First we went to Russia for about 11 months with the British convoys. Then we were up in Norway and Scandinavia.

Trying to sneak a fastball by Ted Williams was like trying to sneak a sunbeam by a rooster in the morning.

Nowadays, they have more trouble packing hair dryers than baseball equipment.

I was only a gun captain on the battleship Alabama for 34 months. People have called me a hero for that, but I'll tell you this - heroes don't come home. Survivors come home.

I try to be a good human being and keep up with what's going on in the world by reading and staying in touch with the current events.

If you believe your catcher is intelligent and you know that he has considerable experience, it is a good thing to leave the game almost entirely in his hands.

I needed to join the Navy. If you ask the people in Europe who won World War II, they don't say the Allies, they say the United States won the war and saved the world.

I would rather beat the Yankees regularly than pitch a no hit game.

Life comes down to honesty and doing what's right. That's what's most important.

Cooperstown is the greatest place on Earth.

You can talk about teamwork on a baseball team, but I'll tell you, it takes teamwork when you have 2,900 men stationed on the U.S.S. Alabama in the South Pacific.

The purest definition of “religious” is: relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality.

I found that disturbing the night's calm ambience was almost as gratifying as the ambience itself.

The more I want to get something done the less I call it work.

My main focus is to always try to be myself first, and then, hey, if I wear a cool jacket, that's a bonus.

Live your life as if you are ready to say goodbye to it at any moment, as if the time left for you were some pleasant surprise.

Divine life is in touch with the whole universe on the analogy of the soul's contact with the body.

To err on the side of passion is human and right and the only way I'll live.

And certainly once a man begins to neglect his domestic duties he becomes painfully effeminate, does he not? And I don't like that. It makes men so very attractive.

The most serious failure of leadership is the failure to foresee

Examples of human stupidity. Blasphemy in Pakistan can now include spelling errors by children or throwing away a card bearing the name "Muhammad".