Basketball Game Quotes

People making it like I sit there and eat a whole plate of candy before I play a basketball game. I don't think anyone could do that. ~ Lamar Odom

I remember playing a high school basketball game where I didn't eat anything for breakfast. I ate, you know, like a PB and J and some chips for lunch and nothing before the game. I didn't make it through the first quarter. I wish I hadn't have learned that way, but it did leave a lasting impression. ~ Andrew Luck

I pray if I ever find out I have only about three minutes to live it's during a basketball game, because then I'll have, what, 10, 12 years to live? ~ Elayne Boosler

I am a basketball junkie, and as a product of the great basketball state of Kansas, I have watched many a ball game between the University of Kansas Jayhawks and the Tar Heels. ~ Sheri L. Dew

I remember one time being told I could not play in a basketball game at the College of William and Mary because I was black, even though I was playing with a United States Army team. ~ Walter Dean Myers

You don't cut anywhere, don't pick down anywhere, don't double screen, no weak side picking. All these things that should happen in a game of basketball don't happen anymore. ~ Oscar Robertson

We old athletes carry the disfigurements and markings of contests remembered only by us and no one else. Nothing is more lost than a forgotten game. ~ Pat Conroy

I just like to win basketball games. That's what motivates me. ~ Chamique Holdsclaw

My grandchild has taught me what true love means. It means watching Scooby-Doo cartoons while the basketball game is on another channel. ~ Gene Perret

I first got into acting when I was 14, coming back from a junior high school basketball game. My mom picked me up and she had been mentioning, prior to that, this community production of 'Godspell', a couple towns over. I was reluctant, at first, and she bribed me with some great dinner that was in that town, neighboring the theater. ~ Skylar Astin

I've done a lot of basketball drills, not a whole lot of competitive stuff. I have basically been in the gym everyday working on my game, working on the time off that I've had from the game, just getting myself prepared mentally and physically for the season. ~ Grant Hill

Nick Nelson was first brandished with the moniker "the last of the nice guys" after leaving a pickup basketball game in 6th grade to help an elderly lady he didn't know, carry her groceries 17 blocks to her house. ~ Matt Micros

I've got to make some decisions just like any other player that has ever played this game, that eventually the clock stops, their basketball clock stops. ~ Alonzo Mourning

When people ask me what I miss most about the game, it's being in the locker room and getting to know the guys. Back in those days, we had roommates. We had to talk basketball and that was a great way to understand the game itself and form those lasting relationships. ~ Earl Monroe

You'd got a baseball game, or a football game, basketball game, "USA! USA! USA!" Hey, calm down! Got a little German on it, don't you think? ~ Chris Rock

I played in Joe Louis in a playoff game. I played there when the roof caved in for half a season. The facility is great for basketball because it goes straight up, so you feel like the fans are on top of you. ~ Bill Laimbeer

Business is a basketball game. The more tricks you know, the more points you score. ~ Ehab Atalla

You know, I think more people should watch women's basketball. It'd do so much for the game. ~ Kevin Durant

Men are men. I've been married to my husband for eight years now; we've been together for 16 years. And I've found that all I have to do is keep him fed and loved, and he's the happiest person. Men just want to be full, watching their basketball game and enjoy some hugs and kisses. ~ Tia Mowry

You take 5 white guys and you take 5 black guys and put em together for a week and what you won't have is 5 blacks guys talking like, 'Golly gee, we really won that big basketball game' but you will have 5 white guys talking like 'Yo slick, whuzzup ... we be shootin hoops and mad playin, slammed those mofos ~ George Carlin

I've been in Philadelphia 10 years, man. I knew it was going to be a challenge, mentally. I always thought life would come to an end if I ever left Philadelphia. And I feel like a newborn. Being in Denver it's just a better situation for me. And I'm just happy that I feel like I got an opportunity where I can win basketball games here. ~ Allen Iverson

Life is like a basketball game, you can shoot but miss. sometimes you even lose a game. There is always a next tournament, but never a time to give up. ~ David Dunham

The fact is that everybody around a college basketball game - the coaches, the announcers, even the referees at a lower level - calculates when the game is really over. They calculate it with intuition and guesswork. ~ Bill James

It is 1979, a basketball game in the Brandeis gym. The team is doing well, and the student section begins a chant, "We're number one! We're number one!" Morrie is sitting nearby. He is puzzled by the cheer. At one point, in the midst of "We're number one!" he rises and yells, "What's wrong with being number two?" The students look at him. They stop chanting. He sits down, smiling and triumphant. ~ Mitch Albom

The game of basketball is not played with throwing punches, throwing elbows. ~ Mo Williams

It's a heavy duty to try to do everything and please everybody. My job was to go out there and play the game of basketball as best I can and provide entertainment for everyone who wanted to watch basketball. Obviously, people may not agree with that; again, I can't live with what everyone's impression of what I should or what I shouldn't do. ~ Michael Jordan

When Batty got back home from walking the dogs, there were teenagers lounging all over the place, some left over from the basketball game, some arriving for the birthday dinner, some who fit into both categories. For once, she hardly cared, too delighted to see that Oliver's sleek car was no longer in the driveway. Hoping that he was gone forever, she rushed into the house and ended up in the kitchen, where dinner preparations were in full swing. Mr. Penderwick was chopping up vegetables for quesadillas, Rosalind was pulling a cake out of the oven, Jeffrey was shredding cheese, and Iantha was cooking up small, plain cheese quesadillas for Lydia, who was to be fed before the big dinner got rolling. Then there were the non-workers: Lydia in her high chair, wearing both her crown and her lamb bib, her new pink rabbit beside her; Jane sitting cross-legged on the floor, in everyone's way; Ben, strutting around, showing off his new Celtics T-shirt; and Asimov, sticking close to Jeffrey, hoping for falling cheese. ~ Jeanne Birdsall

The next morning, I went over to pick them up. I'd spent the night thinking of more things I should tell them--everything about Chris I thought they needed to know.
It was all too much.
"I don't know how to tell you everything," I confessed to Bradley as he got into the car. I started to cry. "There's so many things and we have such a short amount of time."
"Just being here is all we need," he said. "I'm not an impersonator. I'm just here to feel Chris's life--I feel him here with me right now."
Bradley put me at ease and I calmed down. Back at the house, he and Clint became almost like family. Little bits of their personality came out as well--and I saw a glimmer of Clint's famous Dirty Harry character later on in the day when I had to leave to go to Bubba's basketball game.
They'd talked about coming with me--which frankly would have created an impossible circus. But I did give them the option. As they stood trying to make up their minds, I snapped into anxious mom mode.
"All right," I told them both. "You're welcome to come. But if you're coming, we're leaving now."
I guess my tone was a little too strident.
"So you want to get tough with me, huh, lady?" said Clint in his best Dirty Harry voice as he raised his eyebrow.
It's amazing how threatening a simple facial tic can be.
I left them home to study some of Chris's replica guns and gear. Our own already had its ample share of lawmen. ~ Taya Kyle

I am a success at last. We get annihilated. There is no mercy. The word "friendly" is never used in the same context again. "Friendly," according to The Australian Little Oxford Dictionary, means "acting or disposed to act as friend." The word "act" is very apt. The girls glare at me. They need to put a face to their misery and I'm it. From then on, whenever someone uses the words "the basketball game," there is no question which one they are referring to. This ~ Melina Marchetta

A blanket could be used to spot the blind. I'd spot Helen Keller nine points in a ten-point basketball game. ~ Jarod Kintz

I just want to try to ignore the scrutiny and all the distractions and just play hard basketball and let the best come ... Improving game by game and trying to improve my game is what I want to do. ~ Andrew Bogut

I just try to focus on the basketball game and not get caught up in all the media. ~ Lamar Odom

As all of us with any involvement in sports knows, no two umpires or no two referees have the same strike zone or call the same kind of a basketball game. ~ Herb Kohl

I never knew what Amazon was. I've never seen any of those series, even on cable. I've never seen The Sopranos, or Mad Men. I'm out every night and when I come home, I watch the end of the baseball or basketball game, and there's Charlie Rose and I go to sleep. ~ Woody Allen

The biggest scandal I was ever involved in was - in high school, at a basketball game, I shot and scored for the other team. ~ Darby Stanchfield

When you're 18, when you're at college, sports can be your life. You can watch every baseball game, every college basketball game, every football game. Once you have a family and kids, you can't do that anymore. ~ Drew Magary

I would tell players to relax and never think about what's at stake. Just think about the basketball game. If you start to think about who is going to win the championship, you've lost your focus. ~ Michael Jordan

You have to make shots to win basketball games and we didn't do that. You also have to get back on defense, so it was a double-whammy. ~ Gregg Popovich

Jury verdicts, basketball games, and even music are enough to set off black rage, it seems, ~ Ron Paul

There was in him some primitive instinct to protect his parents and siblings, but the rest of the world's inhabitants did not matter to him. They were background scenery, props, nothing more. The truth was - a truth he understood early - he derived intense pleasure from harming others. He always had. He didn't know why. Some people derive pleasure from a soft breeze or a warm hug or a victory shot in a basketball game. Nash derived it from ridding the planet of another inhabitant. He didn't ask this for himself, but he saw it and sometimes he could fight it and sometimes he could not. Then ~ Harlan Coben

If you want to make films, you'll watch Kurosawa. If you want to play a violin, you listen to Seghetti. Same with somebody who has the ambition to play in the NBA. I watch a basketball game; I enjoy it. Somebody who really wants to learn to play is studying whatever is most magnificent that's going on out there. ~ Robert Pinsky

If you're a basketball player and you don't stop and take pictures with your fans, you can have an amazing game and everyone still loves you. ~ Kim Kardashian

My world had stopped, but the outside one kept going. On Saturday, one week after the murder, Bubba had a basketball game. He wanted to go. I wanted him to go, too.
And if he went, I was going, too. Even though I hadn't been out of the house except to go to the funeral home.
A friend picked Bubba up early so he could get there for the pregame warm-up. When it came time to leave to watch the game, I decided to run rather than drive. It was five minutes by car, and I thought it wouldn't take long to trot over.
I was wrong about that.
Four or five of the men at the house accompanied me, including my brother-in-law Jeff, who had just gone through an operation and was still recovering. I'm sure his rehab plan didn't include running alongside a half-crazy woman, but he did anyway, without a complaint or even a "Hey, slow down."
We got to the church gym just in time for the game. I felt such pure joy watching Bubba play. It was one of the very few times that whole month that I was able to completely forget my grief and feel fully myself. They were fleeting moments, but they loom large now in my memory, little islands of relief in a sea of dread.
We all walked home. The men tossed a ball back and forth with Bubba. They couldn't replace Chris, but they provided an enormous, unstated reassurance to Bubba that he would never be alone. ~ Taya Kyle

I started wearing glasses last season but they're only for basketball games and dirty movies. ~ Rick Majerus

I've got a basketball signed by all the greats from Julius Irving to Oscar Robinson. It was at an All Star game I got them all to sign it. So that ain't going nowhere. I'm going to die with that in my casket. ~ Ice Cube

As you get older, stuff starts to wear down. I can't play four basketball games a week anymore. It takes me three days to recover from one. I'm a little older, a little scrappier. So now I do yoga instead. And whatever else happens in the day, I'm set up in the best way possible. I feel great. I'm so flexible. ~ Stephen Lang

Generally speaking, individual performances don't win basketball games ~ John Wooden

I don't know a lot of show runners. I mean I met a lot of them in picket lines. I'm not part of a, like, secret society or pickup basketball game. As far as I'm concerned, pick-up basketball games are secret societies. They confuse me. I've never been a networker or I've never been very social. ~ Joss Whedon

This scene came from the writing I did with Bill in New York, working out of an office in the Director's Guild building. I generally came in early and worked for a couple of hours before Bill arrived. He would then spend about an hour puttering around the office and smoking cheroots, then would eventually settle in next to me at the desk, read what I had written, and begin offering suggestions and improvements. Sometimes I would print out a scene and then mark it up - as with the scene above - as Bill tried out Phil's dialogue, and we tweaked lines accordingly. Our afternoons were often spent walking around New York running Bill's errands while talking about general script issues. He was a warm and wonderful host to me during my New York visit. There was an afternoon where he and Tom Davis paired up against me and Dan Aykroyd in a spontaneous basketball game, the four of us sneakerless and slipping around in our socks. I made my bones with Bill that day when he hurled a basketball at my head and I managed to duck. "Good reflexes," he said. I think of these two weeks with Bill as one of the more surreal and memorable experiences of my writer's life. ~ Danny Rubin

In every game, there's three teams out there. There's the two basketball teams and the team of officials. If the two teams are evenly matched, it can come down to number of possessions. If one out-of-bounds call goes the wrong way, that can be the difference. ~ Tom Heinsohn

Parents, what are your children learning from your worship? Do they see the same excitement as when you go to a basketball game? Do they see you prepare for worship as you do for a vacation? Do they see you hungry to arrive, seeking the face of the Father? Or do they see you content to leave the way you came? ... They are watching. Believe me. They are watching. ~ Max Lucado

I collect different game hats, like Syracuse Women's Volleyball; I have a Navy Basketball hat. They're all vintage but in new condition. ~ Theophilus London

I'm a competitive type of person, whether it's playing a game of basketball or playing business games. ~ Chuck Feeney

It's kind of like ... It's kind of like playin' a basketball game. I am there and the other player is there, and it's just the two of us and I put the other player's body in my van. And I am the winner. ~ Chris Onstad

My first motion capture game was with Sony - 'NBA: The Life.' It was very ahead of its time. Brandon Akiaten, he was the writer and director. He had a real vision of what this game was meant to be; it was a basketball game where I was the Jerry Maguire sports agent type guy. And it was great! ~ Nolan North

When I was young, I was sold on winning. I was always serious on the court. As I got older, I realized that it was just a basketball game. Just go out there and have fun. ~ Carmelo Anthony

Acting on desire is more like a craft, a science, an art. It takes careful mindful practice. Be patient and quiet. Listen, observe, take notes. Figure out what you want, privately, and then choose to want it, publicly. Put your desire out in the open. I want to go swimming. I want to bake bread. I want to paint a picture. I want to build a chair. I want to write a book. You act and then you fail. Over and over. And it's better to start failing when you're young, when all you lose is an ice-cream cone or a basketball game or an afternoon of fun. When you're older, the stakes are higher. If adults don't know how to want, then they lose a love, a career, a life. ~ David Barringer

As long as you put on a jersey, no matter what kind of jersey it is, as long as you're supporting the game of basketball, I enjoy it. ~ Dwyane Wade

If the only reason I coached was to win basketball games, my life would be pretty shallow ~ Mike Krzyzewski

I don't have much of an attention span for TV - I nod off during the basketball playoffs - but when I watch 'Game of Thrones' on On Demand, I'm glued to the set. It's mystical and addictive. Tyrion Lannister, that's my man. ~ Steve Harvey

Self-esteem is directly linked to deserving success. You must deserve victory to feel good about yourself. ~ Rick Pitino

It's not life or death it's a game and at the end of the game there is going to be a winner and a loser. ~ Bernhard Langer

Beauty

Void lay the world, in nothingness concealed,
Without a trace of light or life revealed,
Save one existence which second knew-
Unknown the pleasant words of We and You.
Then Beauty shone, from stranger glances free,
Seen of herself, with naught beside to see,
With garments pure of stain, the fairest flower
Of virgin loveliness in bridal bower.
No combing hand had smoothed a flowing tress,
No mirror shown her eyes their loveliness
No surma dust those cloudless orbs had known,
To the bright rose her cheek no bulbul flown.
No heightening hand had decked the rose with green,
No patch or spot upon that cheek was seen.
No zephyr from her brow had fliched a hair,
No eye in thought had seen the splendour there.
Her witching snares in solitude she laid,
And love's sweet game without a partner played.
But when bright Beauty reigns and knows her power
She springs indignant from her curtained bower.
She scorns seclusion and eludes the guard,
And from the window looks if doors be barred.
See how the tulip on the mountain grown
Soon as the breath of genial Spring has blown,
Bursts from the rock, impatient to display
Her nascent beauty to the eye of day.
When sudden to thy soul reflection brings
The precious meaning of mysterious things,
Thou canst not drive the thought from out thy brain;
Speak, hear thou must, for silence is suc ~ Nūr Ad-Dīn 'Abd Ar-Rahmān Jāmī

Golf isn't like other sports where you can take a player out if he's having a bad day. You have to play the whole game. ~ Phil Blackmar

So no, excuse me, we will not play likability anymore. It's an endless runner - a game with no progress and no finish line - that women are expected to chase, that keeps us from doing the real work, accruing the real power. Chasing likability has been one of women's biggest setbacks, by design. I don't know that rejecting likability will get us anywhere, but I know that embracing it has gotten us nowhere. ~ Lindy West

I don't think there's been anything in the game of football in my lifetime that has changed college football more than redshirting. ~ Lou Holtz

The females showed their vulnerability by caving into the comforting arms of their shipmates. The males put us in our place through a cat and mouse game of wooing and slut shaming. ~ Maggie Young

Indeed, is not the homecoming amateur with his vast number of artistic snaps more contented than the hunter, returning laden with the game which is only of value to the trader. ~ Walter Benjamin

If it's the ultimate game, how come they're playing it again next year? ~ Duane Thomas

I feel like I should be more in touch with the nuances of this game. ~ Ichiro Suzuki

Like the bear who went over the mountain, I went out to see what I could see. And, I might as well warn you, like the bear, all I could see was the other side of the mountain: more of same. I propose to keep here what Thoreau called 'a meteorological journal of the mind,' telling some tales and describing some of the sights of this rather tamed valley, and exploring, in fear and trembling, some of the unmapped dim reaches and unholy fastnesses to which those tales and sights dizzyingly lead.

I am no scientist. I explore the neighborhood. Some unwonted, taught pride diverts us from our original intent, which is to explore the neighborhood, view the landscape, to discover at least where it is that we have been set down, if we can't learn why.

So I think about the valley. It is my leisure as well as my work, a game. It is a fierce game I have joined because it is being played anyway, a game of both skill and chance, played against an unseen adversary- the conditions of time-in which the payoffs, which may suddenly arrive in a blast of light at any moment, might as well come to me as anyone else. I risk getting stuck on the board, so to speak, unable to move in any direction, which happens enough; and I risk the searing, exhausting nightmares that plunder rest and force me face down all night long in some muddy ditch seething with hatching insects and crustaceans.

But if I can bear the nights, the days are a pleasure. I walk out; I see something, ~ Annie Dillard

Eminem is like the godfather of the hip-hop game, ~ Tony Yayo

I make too much money to play a game I love to ever feel sorry for myself. ~ Josh Beckett

Going home and just seeing what a mess youth baseball was was an eye-opener. I just want to make it a better game. ~ Roy Halladay

I think that David Stern is probably the greatest commissioner that any sport has ever had in the history of this country. ~ Bill Russell

He tossed the deck to David. 'You get first deal.'
'I've got one hand.'
'Right, then. Deal those cards, Max, and let's have ourselves a game. ~ Henry H. Neff

I think people tune in to watch a football game because they want to watch a football game. If they wanted to watch a stand-up comedy show on HBO, that's where they'd go ~ Dan Dierdorf

This isn't a game. If you sign on, your body will no longer be your own. Modesty has no place, none whatsoever, in a slave's repertoire. You will do as you're told, when you're told, or be punished. If this isn't something you think you can handle, you'd better face that right now. ~ Claire Thompson

For over ten years or so game music has developed into a very large market. ~ Nobuo Uematsu

We learn to make a shell for ourselves when we are young and then spend the rest of our lives hoping for someone to reach inside and touch us. Just touch us - anything more than that would be too much for us to bear. ~ Bill Russell

I failed, I think, seven [or] eight times before I finally got my first [championship]. It was just, you know, just about me growing up. Now that I'm an old, old veteran-age 29-I do things a lot differently. I don't go to the gentlemen's clubs anymore. I had to slow that down. ~ Shaquille O'Neal

I love bowl games. I really do. I like it more than the kids do. I grew up a poor kid in western Pennsylvania, and I went to Nebraska because I saw them play in the Orange Bowl and I wanted to play in a bowl game. I cherish the memories. ~ Barry Alvarez

It would be very heard, for example, a basketball owner, no matter how racist he was, to try to operate without Blacks. It would be suicidal. ~ Thomas Sowell

I don't care if it's a preseason game or not. You want to win. ~ Tarvaris Jackson

All I know is, as long as I led the Southeastern Conference in scoring, my grades would be fine. ~ Charles Barkley

Earl "The Goat" Manigault was probably the greatest basketball player of all time, but Michael Jordan is universally regarded as the best ever. This is because The Goat only did it at Rucker Park, while Michael did it where it mattered: in front of the world. ~ Tucker Max

If you were a game, Silas, you'd be Monopoly. You just go on and on and everyone ends up cheating just to be over with it. ~ Colleen Hoover

You want to kill me??
- So I guess that truth hurts, but why it hurts?
Lie doesn't but truth does??
How does it happen??
So you go... you say "Well, well pretty nice made knife..." and you are looking it by moving it like rotate and such type of stuff and one moment you want to kill me. But why??
Is it because I just "I lived" or it was because of "Listen" or it was because of "The Walk"??

or what's the answer? ~ Deyth Banger

I feel blessed to be able to do these events. As I travel around, I'm fully cognizant that there are a lot of people out there who are sportscasters or who want to be sportscasters who would kill to do the Maui Invitational or the Ohio State-Michigan game. So if you have to endure some inconveniences along the way, that's fine by me. ~ Sean McDonough

Players who are committed to the team first will find a way to help when things are going bad, they will do whatever it takes. Kids that are more into themselves will not do that. They will take care of themselves and get more individual when things are tough. ~ Dick Bennett

There is a part of me that really just thinks it would be so funny to see the 'Veep' characters in 'Game of Thrones.' ~ Timothy Simons

I would never play an extra year for money. I play the game because I love it. I just so happen to get paid. If I don't feel I still enjoy the game, I can care less what a year is worth. I'm not going to play the game just because of money. ~ Michael Jordan

The entire ball game, in terms of both the exam and life, was what you gave attention to vs. what you willed yourself to not. ~ David Foster Wallace

It's a pity you didn't know when you started your game of murder, that I was playing, too. ~ Robb White

I don't know if cortisone is good for you or not. But to take a shot every other ball game is more than I wanted to do and to walk around with a constant upset stomach because of the pills and to be high half the time during a ball game because you're taking painkillers, I don't want to have to do that. ~ Sandy Koufax

Nintendo not letting itself make a browser Mario game has not stopped a flash flood of in-browser Mario games. Super Mario Flash, New Super Mario Bros. Flash, Infinite Mario, and the amazing Super Mario Crossover, which lets you play the original SMB games using characters from Castlevania, Excitebike, Ninja Gaidan, and more. (If you like that, try Abobo's Big Adventure.) There are free (and unlicensed) Mario games where he rides a motorbike, takes a shotgun to the Mushroom Kingdom, decides to fight with his fists, is replaced by Sonic, replaces Pac-Man in a maze game, and plays dress-up. They receive no admonition from Nintendo's once-ferocious legal department. Why not? Iwata's explanation is commonsensical: "[I]t would not be appropriate if we treated people who did someone based on affection for Nintendo as criminals." This is also why no one has been told by lawyers to stop selling Wario-as-a-pimp T-shirts. ~ Jeff Ryan