Pete Rose is the most likable arrogant person I've ever met.

If you could equate the amount of time and effort put in mentally and physically into succeeding on the baseball field and measured it by the dirt on your uniform, mine would have been black.

I don't think I can get into my deep inner thoughts about hitting. It's like talking about religion.

Any time you think you have the game conquered, the game will turn around and punch you right in the nose.

I can't stand satisfaction. To me, greatness comes from that quest for perfection.

Philadelphia is the only city, where you can experience the thrill of victory and the agony of reading about it the next day.

If you're associated with the Philadelphia media or town, you look for negatives. I don't know if there's something about their upbringing or they have too many hoagies, or too much cream cheese.

You're trying your damndest, you strike out and they boo you. I act like it doesn't bother me, like I don't hear anything the fans say, but the truth is I hear every word of it and it kills me.

I need to be out earning. I can make more in two hours at a card show than I did [as a minor-league manager] all year.

I could ask the Phillies to keep me on to add to my statistics, but my love for the game won't let me do that.

It isn't that hard to get RBI's when you're hitting home runs, you generally get a least one.

I write to understand what I know.

How lucky are you that you are alive today? Don’t forget to live. Choose to live beautifully

Your heart will always go where your mind wanders.

Eternity exist in a holy time.

I don't like to travel. Yet all my books seem to involve a journey.

You should be a missile and go and destroy your opponent.

The stranger who receives the rare gift of human kindness holds its value in his heart forever.

Children have always responded to me because I have that cartoon-character look.

One of the things I strive for is realism. I need to be as real as possible in the dilemmas my characters face.