Ricky Williams Quotes

I think if I were a college professor, no one would say I was uncomfortable about being shy because that might be expected. But I think because of people's stereotypes, they think of a football player as someone who is very outgoing and I'm not.

I'm a huge gamer, everything from PC to Xbox to PS2.

I would drive home and see people wearing my No. 34 jersey and wonder why, because I didn't feel worthy of that. And all the time I just knew people were staring at me, talking about me everywhere I went.

I'm nice because, when I was growing up, so many people weren't nice to me, and I remember how that felt. And I don't want to make anyone else feel like that. I value nice.

Everywhere I go, I hear 'Welcome back.' But everywhere I have been, I have always been with myself. I'm with myself now more than ever. It's funny people say 'Welcome back' when I haven't gone anywhere.

It's something that I had been pushing down my whole life. The search for meaning, I guess, the whispering of the soul.

I really do love football.

People are hungry because they're eating empty foods. Mine are full, and so am I.

At the core, we're all spiritual beings.

I have no room in my life for any form of negativity or nonacceptance.

Tomorrow doesn't really exist.

I don't feel like my speed or my power or my desire to play this game has diminished at all.

Maybe I'm stupid or whatever, but to me if I got a concussion, if I could see straight and I could carry a football then I'm not telling anybody.

I led the NFL in attempts the past two years and they really didn't go out and get a quarterback to help me so I knew it's going to be all on me again. I could see my mortality as a football player, that I'm not going to be able to do this much longer. It just became obvious to me that playing football for me is not going to be fun, not something I'm going to enjoy and it's time for me to do something different.

There's nothing I miss about anything in the whole wide world. The idea of missing something means you're not living in the moment. Every moment is good for something.

Nine in the box ... that's a football term.

Everywhere I go, people hear Ricky Williams and the next thing they think is marijuana or wasted talent.

I think it's very easy for people to stereotype athletes, good and bad.

I'm closer to being happy. I'm doing things that make me happy. In football I loved to practice and I loved to play, but I hated to be in meetings, hated to talk to the media, hated to have cameras in my face, hated to sign autographs. I hated to do all those things.

Sometimes success will get in the way of maturity - at least temporarily.

And any time you feed your ego, it's a one-way street ... There were so many things I had to deal with that erased the positives I got from playing the game that it wasn't worth it. It's like eating a Big Mac and drinking a Diet Coke.

I stepped away to find out more about myself, which I was having difficulty doing as a football player. I got a chance to travel the world. I studied Eastern philosophy, and I've grown as a person so much.

I've always been attracted to things that are taboo. I've never been afraid to go to that dark place.

One thing I've learned about life is that if you really let go, it's just a joy ride.

In therapy, I see myself in the mirror differently.

Coaches want so many things from a back. It's hard to find someone like Edgerrin James or Marshall Faulk, someone you can trust to block, catch and be physical. But I can do all those things.

I want to really start focusing on what I want to accomplish and what it is I want to achieve, but not micromanaging this or that and focusing on the little things.

I've gotten to a point, where I realize that happiness doesn't come from the outside.

One of my biggest problems is that I'm always so influenced by what other people are thinking about me.

Playing in the National Football League, you're told, you know, where to be, when to be there, what to wear, how to be there. Being able to step away from that, I have an opportunity to look deeper into myself and look for what's real.

I definitely have come out of my shell a lot more. When you question who you are, you can't be proud of who you are. Now that I'm trying to peel off those layers and really understand who I am, I don't have anything to be shy about.

Growing up with two sisters, you either play by yourself or play Barbie with them. I played by myself.

If you replace the word God in the Bible with the word Truth, it reads exactly right.

If you want to surf, move to Hawaii. If you like to shop, move to New York. If you like acting and Hollywood, move to California. But if you like college football, move to Texas.

What I would tell young players is that as you get older, the best thing you can do is try to have other interests and have opportunities.

I realized a while back that I have an innate ability to be compassionate, and I saw that the strength of compassion is something that healers have and healers use.'

I'm halfway intelligent. I'll figure something out.

I think Ricky Williams had his time in the limelight. And I think it was good for what it was worth, and that was that.

Well, I am now convinced there is no kind of fear or anxiety anyone has to live with.

I think I have a tendency to look at things subjectively rather than objectively when I reflect on my experience.

The more I pay attention to what's going on inside, the more I realize that how I feel, and how I react to what I feel, really creates my reality. And the more in touch I can be, the better chance I have to control what's happening in my life.

I want people to think they can't die until they see me play.

The money is what made me miserable. I want to be free of that stress.

As an athlete, you figure you work your whole life to have what you have, and to be able to show the world what you have and how proud you are of it, that's always fun.

The people that I see on the street, they treat me more as a human being and not just an icon or a football player.

I want to thank all my fans, teammates, coaches and supporters for the strength they've given me to overcome so much.

Human beings aren't supposed to be controlled and told what to do.

It's good to do things slow in the bush. It makes you appreciate everything a lot more.

I started practicing yoga. I started learning some hands-on healing stuff. And I found really good chiropractors, really good massage therapists, and what I found is I've been able to actually peel off layers of trauma on my body and actually move better now than I did.

I think sometimes when it comes to sports, and especially relationships between players and coaches, that people lose track, lose a sense of reality.

Football is my job, not my life, but it's a job I'm going to give my all for as long as I'm in it.

I've let a lot of things go, and obviously football is one of them. I think the hardest thing to let go is your self-image. That's what I'm working on now.

Greatness is the willingness to choose in the midst of intensity.

I can look back at it now as definitely like an initiation into adulthood. Almost overnight in the NFL, I was put on a pedestal and I was supposed to be this icon or this image of what a professional athlete was supposed to be. I felt like I just got stuck trying to be someone else and I forgot who I actually was.

I don't think people change. I think they definitely mature. But I think the essence of what I am today is the same as when I was five years old. It's just maturity. I've become a healthier, fuller expression of that essence.

I don't think I'll ever be able to stay in one place for more than a year or two. It's not in my nature.

When I retired, I felt that I lived more in that year than I had the previous 27 years of my life.

I had this notion that everyone was staring at me and judging everything about me, from my appearance to the way I talk and everything.

The NFL has been an amazing page in this chapter of my life. I pray that all successive adventures offer me the same potential for growth, success and most importantly fun.