Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.

For me, I tend to sit back sometimes and just count my blessings because of how long I've played.

He's not anybody's clone. He's Ken Griffey, Jr. As long as he continues to remind himself of that, he's going to be a very good player.

I don't think much about whether fans will remember me.

I have always loved the Bay Area. I spent a lot of time in the Bay Area. I started my career there. That's a huge part of the excitement for me.

I think hitting is more a mentality than a philosophy. A philosophy is somebody telling you the way they think it should be. Well, different people believe in different things. My thing is this: Be ready to hit.

I used to lead off when I was a rookie. I've always been able to bunt.

I'm at the point in my career where to be a winner is more important than any individual things.

I've always favored kids as a player. If I walked out of the locker room and there were 100 people there and 50 of them were kids, I'd sign the 50 kids before anything else.

I've been on teams that lost a hundred games in a season. I've been on teams that had a shot to make the playoffs and fizzled out at the end.

I've got a fastball, change-up, forkball, curve, slider, knuckle-slider, knuckle-curve, I had about seven pitches I could have used at any time.

If I stayed in this game for individual achievements, I don't think I'd still be playing.

Individual statistics, plate time and everything tend to come, but the most enjoyment I get out of baseball is actually winning.

It all comes down to when spring training comes. Do you want to go or don't you? If you want to go, you go.

It's good to know you're working for someone you're familiar with, who's a friend and he has your back and you have his back also.

My dad gave me a haircut... and it wasn't a very good one. When I went out of the house, my friends got on my case and said it looked like someone put a chili bowl over my head and cut around it.

My sister is a good story of resiliency. She had a full ride at UC Davis, but she left school to go to the Philippines - and then she decided to go back to school in her 40s, which surprised me. She went to UC Berkeley, and I think she was one of two African Americans in her class at Haas. She's really impressive.

Professionalism is not sportsmanship. If you don't succeed, you won't be in your profession for long. In our society, it's not about good or bad. It's about who's on top.

The first time I picked up a bat in a professional game, I hit a ball hard left-handed, and my first home run was so effortless, it surprised me.

The toughest thing in hitting shouldn't be deciding when to swing. It is, for me, deciding when not to swing. You should be swinging from the time you get into the batter's box until something says don't swing.

There are certain things I can't do, certain pitches I can't hit. You stay away from them. You try to wait for pitches you can hit. The bat speed isn't what it used to be. You make up for it by using your head, working counts, getting ahead in counts and getting pitches to hit and hitting them hard.

You don't get old being stupid.

You fool around with different pitches playing catch, but it's not the same when you've got to face some guy with a bat in his hand.

You dont get old being stupid.

Growing old is mandatory growing up is optional.

Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional.

If I had to come up with something that just came to me, I think growing up in a small town, I want knowledge. I still think today, knowledge is one of the keys.

I didn't know I was a conservative when it didn't matter to me growing up.

My interests were in fantasy more than comics growing up.

The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt.

Growing up in Hollywood it seemed like every kid was the child of some star. We had no idea that other people would think we were special, because there was no other lifestyle to compare it to.

For me, the great problem growing up in England was that I had a very narrow concept of what God can be, and it was damn close to an old man with a beard.

David and Dad didn't get along too well growing up. I mean we all got along, but it was harder on David, because David wasn't going to be the son that Dad wanted. But now they're like best friends.

My lyrics come from my experiences growing up in life, trying to find out and express who I am. That's basically it. I'm not trying to be a prophet or anything like that. I'm just reflecting on life.

I was born in 1961. Now I think the 16 years that elapsed between 1961 and the end of the wars is nothing. To a child growing up it felt like an eternity, an entirely different world.

I was growing up listening to Queen. Freddie Mercury threw those incredible melodies into his songs.

Although I was not aware of it at the time, the experience of growing up during the Great Depression was to have a profound impact on my intellectual and professional career.

Growing up, mostly in Montreal, I was an only child of loving parents.

I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.

I don't mind snakes. Growing up in South Africa there were a couple a snakes around... and I'm not talking just about the government!

Growing up in public is especially hard sometimes.

You get used to sadness, growing up in the mountains, I guess.

I had a really bad temper, when I was growing up. Sport helped me channel that temper into more positive acts.

I think it would be very scary and very confusing if I didn't understand where people are coming from, but I've felt the exact same way for so many other bands, growing up. It's not really a big deal.

I don't think I ever set my goals that high. As a kid growing up I just wanted an opportunity to race and to be able to make a living doing it. It just came together.

I think the obvious answer is I was raised in New York City, so growing up, not only myself but my family, like my father, we would watch a lot of Scorsese films.

My father is a real idealist, and he's all about learning. If I asked for a pair of Nikes growing up, it was just a resounding 'No.' But if I asked for a saxophone, one would appear and next day and I'd be signed up for lessons. So anything to do with education or learning, my father would spare no expense.

Absolutely the worst thing about this job is the travel and being away from family. I have a wife and three wonderful children, the kids are all active in sports and it's very difficult to up and leave and miss them growing up.