Athlete Quotes - Page 30

• I'm an athlete and I'm black, and a lot of black athletes go broke. I do not want to become a statistic, so maybe I overcompensate. But I'm paranoid. Oprah told me a long time ago, 'You sign every check. Never let anyone sign any checks.'

  Serena Williams

  Long, Black, Want

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• I think nowadays it's so easy as an athlete to become a statistic whether or not you lose everything or having trouble or whatever it may be.

  Venus Williams

  Thinking, May, Trouble

  Interview with Tavis Smiley, www.pbs.org. July 16, 2010.

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• Unfortunately the world is what it is now. People don't get along for whatever reason. As professional athletes, in a way we're almost ambassadors for peace, because sports brings everyone together.

  Venus Williams

  Sports, People, Together

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• I am just a common man who is true to his beliefs.

  John Wooden

  Inspirational, Sports, Men

  John Wooden (2011). “Wooden: A Legacy in Words and Images (EBOOK)”, p.1, McGraw-Hill Professional

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• I mean, as an athlete, as a competitor, you have to have that belief in yourself.

  Tiger Woods

  Mean, Belief, Competitors

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• Growing up as an athlete, I started skating very young. My parents didn't know anything about the sport, so they went with the flow. I had two great coaches who gave great advice and gave guidelines for my parents. My parents let the coaches dictate what was going on on the ice.

  Kristi Yamaguchi

  Sports, Growing Up, Ice

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• If one can stick to the training throughout the many long years, then will power is no longer a problem. It's raining? That doesn't matter. I am tired? That's besides the point. It's simply that I just have to.

  Emil Zatopek

  Inspirational, Motivational, Sports

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• Good ideas are like Nike sports shoes. They may facilitate success for an athlete who possesses them, but on their own they are nothing but an overpriced pair of sneakers. Sports shoes don't win races. Athletes do.

  Felix Dennis

  Sports, Nike, Winning

  Felix Dennis (2011). “The Narrow Road: A Brief Guide to the Getting of Money”, p.45, Penguin

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• There's no question that O.J. Simpson had been a substitute white man in America. He had gained honorary white status. He was not viewed by many white Americans as black. He was not seen as the African American athlete who was rebellious: Jim Brown, Muhammad Ali, Hank Aaron... He was accepted in golf clubs that were very tony.

  Michael Eric Dyson

  Golf, Men, White Man

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• I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each, it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes, in some area, an athlete of God. Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.

  Martha Graham

  Dance, Believe, Learning

  "The Routledge Dance Studies Reader". Book by Alexandra Carter and Janet O'Shea, p. 96, 1998.

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• Souls are like athletes, that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers, and rewarded according to their capacity.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Soul, Needs

  Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.117, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Like the bodies of dancers or athletes, the minds of readers are genuinely happy and self-possessed only when cavorting around, doing their stretches and leaps and jumps to the tune of words.

  Lynne Sharon Schwartz

  Self, Dancer, Mind

  FaceBook post by Lynne Sharon Schwartz from Oct 22, 2014

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• I began feeling the way I imagine an actor or athlete must feel when, after years of commitment to a particular dream...he realizes that he's gone just about as far as talent or fortune will take him. The dream will not happen, and he now faces the choice of accepting this fact like a grownup and moving on to more sensible pursuits, or refusing the truth and ending up bitter, quarrelsome, and slightly pathetic.

  Barack Obama

  Inspirational, Dream, Moving

  "The Audacity of Hope". Book by Barack Obama, www.npr.org. October 17, 2006.

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• Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, talent, guts. That's what little girls are made of; the heck with sugar and spice.

  Bethany Hamilton

  Inspirational, Girl, Courage

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• Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.

  Jane Yolen

  Writing, Character, Exercise

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• God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.

  Eric Liddell

  Motivational, Sports, Running

  "Fictional character: Eric Liddell". "Chariots of Fire", www.imdb.com. 1981.

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• My mother is currently associating with some undesirables who are attempting to transform her into an athlete of sorts, deprave specimens of mankind who regularly bowl their way to oblivion.

  John Kennedy Toole

  Mother, Way, Oblivion

  John Kennedy Toole (2004). “A Confederacy of Dunces”, p.152, LSU Press

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• The power of one is above all things the power to believe in yourself, ofen well beyond any latent ability you may have previously demonstrated. The mind is the athlete, the body is simply the means it uses to run faster or longer, jump higher, shoot straighter, kick better, swim harder, hit further, or box better.

  Bryce Courtenay

  Running, Believe, Mean

  Bryce Courtenay (2006). “The Power Of One”, p.676, Penguin UK

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• Elsewhere the paper notes that vegetarians and vegans (including athletes) 'meet and exceed requirements' for protein. And, to render the whole we-should-worry-about-getting-enough-protein-and-therefore-eat-meat idea even more useless, other data suggests that excess animal protein intake is linked with osteoporosis, kidney disease, calcium stones in the urinary tract, and some cancers. Despite some persistent confusion, it is clear that vegetarians and vegans tend to have more optimal protein consumption than omnivores.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Cancer, Food, Animal

  "Eating Animals". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, March 4, 2010..

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• Scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side with athletes and entertainers as role models.

  Barack Obama

  Role Models, Roles, Sides

  "Obama Remarks on Math, Science and Technology Education". www.washingtonpost.com. November 23, 2009.

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• Notice how many of the Olympic athletes effusively thanked their mothers for their success? “She drove me to my practice at four in the morning,” etc. Writing is not figure skating or skiing. Your mother will not make you a writer. My advice to any young person who wants to write is: leave home.

  Paul Theroux

  Mother, Morning, Home

  "Fiction in the Age of E-Books". The Atlantic Interview, www.theatlantic.com. 2010.

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• To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will tax the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Book, Exercise, Training

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• Boxing is a glorious sport to watch and boxers are incredible, heroic athletes, but it's also, to be honest, a stupid game to play. Even the winners can end up with crippling brain damage. In a lot of ways, hustling is the same. But you learn something special from playing the most difficult games, the games where winning is close to impossible and losing is catastrophic: You learn how to compete as if your life depended on it. That's the lesson I brought with me to the so-called "legitimate" world.

  Jay-Z

  Sports, Stupid, Winning

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• But she was already in. Gareth couldn't help but stand back in admiration. Hyacinth Bridgerton was clearly a natural born athlete. Either that or a cat burglar.

  Julia Quinn

  Cat, Hyacinths, Helping

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• Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired morning, noon, and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired. When you were younger the mind could make you dance all night, and the body was never tired... You've always got to make the mind take over and keep going.

  George S. Patton

  Inspirational, Motivational, Running

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