Pitchers did me a favor when they knocked me down. It made me more determined. I wouldn't let that pitcher get me out. They say you can't hit if you're on your back, but I didn't hit on my back. I got up.

No, I don't think my presence will cause an increase in black attendance at Cleveland.

If the guys on the bench were as good as the guys you have out there, they'd be out there in first place.

I always tried to do the best. I knew I couldn't always be the best, but I tried to be.

The fan is the one who suffers. He cheers a guy to a .350 season then watches that player sign with another team. When you destroy fan loyalties, you destroy everything.

I know a lot of people on the field - players, coaches, managers - are glad that I'm gone.

I haven't seen a player in this game, as long as I've been in it, that can't be pitched to... Barry is an outstanding ballplayer. I respect him an awful lot. I also have confidence in my pitchers that they can pitch to Barry Bonds and get him out.

Pitchers did me a favor when they knocked me down. It made me more determined. I wouldn't let that pitcher get me out. They say you can't hit if you're on your back, but I didn't hit on my back. I got up.

Close don't count in baseball. Close only counts in horseshoes and grenades.

But I'm not going to walk Barry Bonds, like some teams do, in the first inning with nobody on.

Managers don't have as much leverage as they used to have. We can't really be the boss.

All in all, I wouldn't call it a bad outing. It was a short outing.

At least when it's in French, I won't know what the heck they're saying.

You have to have a short memory as a closer.

If he can hit, he can hit. I don't care if he came from Class Z league.

It's nice to come into a town and be referred to as the manager of the Cleveland Indians instead of as the first black manager.

No. 1, these guys out here on this field. They keep my energy level up. They try hard, they don't complain about things - and I'd just like to be with them when things are good, and hopefully we can win a pennant together.

I just didn't have anything to say, so I said nothing.

The way we're going... if I called up another pitcher, he'd just hang up the phone on me.

People come out to see the players. When do you see a manager anyway? When he's out on the field arguing with the umpires, making a fool of himself and you know you can't win, and when he brings out the line-up card.

When I was 15, if anything, I thought I was going to be a Delta bluesman, which is so ridiculous.

I didn't want to write a biographie romancee especially since I already write novels, nor did I want to challenge the rules of the biography game, arbitrary as those rules might be.

Be nice to each other. You can make a whole day a different day for everybody.

I just think the most important aspect in being able to have a productive relationship between the teachers' unions and the districts and the states that they're dealing with is that the person sitting across the table from them should not have received the largest campaign contributions from the teachers' union itself.

It is in Toyota's DNA that mistakes made once will not be repeated.

The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.

I had a white senator call me a rag head, and I had an African-American legislator call me a conservative with a tan.

The interesting thing is that you don't often meet a poet who doesn't have a sense of humour, and some of them do keep it out of their poems because they're afraid of being seen as light versifiers.

All good leaders are connectors. They relate well and make people feel confident about themselves and their leader.

I don't care what anybody says: Nothing is better than a tomato you grow. There's something about it that's different than a tomato you can buy. It's a great thing.

I've had three broken legs and two knee replacements. But I'm very good at apres golf.

In 'Requiem for a Dream,' the director Darren Aronofsky's adaptation of Hubert Selby Jr.'s lower-depths novel, Jared Leto has lost so much weight, he looks like another person altogether.

I figured out, I guess, that the job just makes me happy if it's not number one. So if it all works, great. If it doesn't, I still go home, look at my kids, and I have a big smile on my face.

The degree to which your Consciousness expands, is the degree to which you understand yourself and the universe.

I was so full of joy, the happiest kid. Things changed. I don't want to talk about it. I needed attention. I was pathologically shy. I'd climb the highest tree or try to ski off the highest mountain. I'd get into fights. I wanted contact. I'd hit somebody, just for that.

I think I'm always adopting a persona. That's how I look at pop music. I don't feel like I have to be myself. I feel like I have to be true to myself, but I don't have to show an exact picture of who I am.

If you are happy with your present time you will look at your past with happy eyes even if you have had a sad past

I called the doctor, during writing the book, the psychiatrist who treated me at that time, Dr. Jackson. And I said, Dr. Jackson, whole pieces are missing. I don't understand what happened to me.

I was very small, about 3 or 4 I think, and just wanted to be the people on telly telling these wonderful stories. Obviously the idea grew and matured with me but I can't ever remember wanting to do anything else. I've just sort of taken it for granted all my life that that was what I would do.

Korean audiences are amazing. The fans scream so loud, and that really surprises skaters when they first perform in my shows.

I don't like the idea of being a human being, existing, talking to my friends, and having these real human conversations, and then getting to work on a sitcom and turning that part of my brain off.

I like to give myself a nice run up to a shirtless scene. Physically, it really doesn't make any difference. It's about mentally feeling good about it.

I think I probably would have enjoyed to keep my own private pain out of my work. But I was changed by my audience who said your private pain which you have unwittingly shown us in your early songs is also ours.

Conflict is inevitable but combat is optional.