The game of baseball between pitcher and hitter sets up like a game of chess in that you have to anticipate several moves ahead to set up your opponent.

I never lost confidence in myself, no matter what the years were like or the results.

I'd like to get back and win the World Series and have that be the last image in my mind for the postseason.

When you're pitching, you always have to make continual improvements. You always have to better yourself throughout your career.

It doesn't make a whole of sense to me to waste pitches.

I want to be a guy who can be relied upon.

You win and lose as a team.

I'm not going to be a guy who does dances after he strikes somebody out. I'm not like that. I just want to secure a win. That's my job.

If they know you're a nibbler, they're going to wait and look for that. Hitters have to be more aggressive if you're more aggressive.

When you're a pitcher for the Houston Astros and a stranger notices you in a mall in Colorado, you know things have really changed.

Whenever you don't have a good game, whether you're a starter, reliever, whatever, you definitely want to get out there again as soon as you can.

I hold strongly to this: that it is better to be impetuous than circumspect

If you have time, you need a vision. If you have money you need a purpose.

You ask yourself when you’ll learn, and the answer is always, “Tomorrow.

Survive, survive and survive – these are the quintessential laws of Nature. But survive does not always mean being mean.

The visual of Satan isn’t one of a big red devil with horns. Even worse, it’s the picture of something good, twisted enough to be compelling.

What the crowd requires is mediocrity of the highest order.

For the time being I have seen enough of living things, of dogs, of men, of all flabby masses which move spontaneously.

The fact is that the creative person is a disciplined craftsman whose 'gift' is a reaching out toward his most profound personal potential.

I don't think the nature of my poetry is satirical or even ironic, I think it's essentially lyrical but again I don't know if it's my position to say what my poetry is like.

Jazz is one of the few things you can do in society and express yourself freely and creatively.