A lot of people don't know that my father is black.

He was a professional rugby player in the area that I played as a youngster. So a lot of people who I went to school with knew who he was and knew that he was black. So I would get racist taunts in school.

I do not wish to hide my origins, nor do I seek to make it a subject of conversation. I am what I am.

I am proud of my black roots and of the black blood that runs in my veins.

As a footballer I can't imagine life without the use of one of my legs... Sadly this is exactly what happens to thousands of children every year when they accidentally step on a landmine.

A lot of people don't know that my father is black.

As players, you just play for the club. I love Man United, I'm going to play for Man United, and that's what my focus is on.

Celebrity culture, it's everywhere, isn't it? It's reality TV, Big Brother. I didn't become a footballer to be famous, I became a footballer to be successful. I didn't want to be famous. Now people want to be famous. Why? Why would you want people following you about all day?

Every footballer wants to play forever. And if you are going to keep on playing - to enjoy it to the full - you want to win games, and as a result, trophies.

Football is easy when things are going well, but when its not, it becomes the biggest test.

I didn't become a footballer to be famous, I became a footballer to be successful. I didn't want to be famous. Now people want to be famous. Why? Why would you want people following you about all day? I couldn't think of anything worse.

I had an early taste of fame. I was 20, going out with TV presenter Dani Behr and we'd have paparazzi chasing us. I'm not comfortable being photographed, though I accept it is part of the job. I had to ask myself, 'What comes first, being a celebrity or footballer?'

I had my footballing heroes such as Bryan Robson and Diego Maradona but my dad was a rugby league star, and he was my real hero. But the relationship with my mum was rocky and we saw things that would affect any youngster.

I have always considered myself to be very fortunate. To play for the biggest club in the world, which also happens to be the team I supported as a boy, means I have never had to consider changing away from Manchester United.

I just want to be as successful as I can in football.

I like to let my football do the talking, I'm respectful of other good teams such as Arsenal.

I'm not comfortable being photographed, though I accept it is part of the job.

I've always had people come up to me to say that they admire the way I play, and then they tell me they're not United fans. That's always been nice.

I've put myself forward to be involved. Whether I get picked, we'll have to wait and see. Obviously everybody is excited about it, about the Olympics coming to London and the football being played in different parts of Britain.

If I feel I'm not influencing games, not scoring goals or making goals, then that's the time I'd pack it in.

Many players want to make as much money as they can and change teams for ten grand. How is that going to make much difference to their lives?

My weight doesn't really fluctuate, but I make sure I don't eat late at night. It's about making sure I'm right physically because mentally I'm OK.

There's never been completion in my football career because I've always been striving for that next thing.

Too much money at a young age, it just takes your eye off the ball. And you're not as hungry as players used to be. You think you've made it before you've done anything.

When you lose a game or don't play well you can't wait for the next one, because it soon disappears, the disappointment.

Where I grew up, people obviously knew my dad because it's a small place and he was the top player for Swinton - they'd go and watch him play, see him in the papers, so they knew he was black.

Where does it stop? You get offered money for your wedding, then for your kids, new houses, holidays... We earn enough from football and sponsorships, why do you need any more?

When he was twenty-three or twenty-four my father began to learn German and read philosophy in his spare hours, which did not look as though he were destined to remain long on board ship!

My father was often angry when I was most like him.

Arnold Bennett was a writer I admired. He was actually taking notes at his father's deathbed.

Most fathers don't see the war within the daughter, her struggles with conflicting images of the idealized and flawed father, her temptation both to retreat to Daddy's lap and protection and to push out of his embrace to that of beau and the world beyond home.

My mother is Irish, my father is black and Venezuelan, and me - I'm tan, I guess.

My father was a police officer before he retired. One of my brothers is also a police officer, and I think they kind of expected I would do something along those lines, like become a fireman or something.

The fame aspect of winning the Masters... besides being married and becoming a father, that's a strong third there.

I'd rather be David Ladd's father than Alan Ladd any day.

I hated Chris, my brother. I would pull his hair and kick him, until one day my father gave him permission to fight back. I'll be apologizing to him for the rest of my life.

Being a father, well, I don't know if this is a change, but it makes me want to get out of here faster. Get off the clock. Just 'cause the baby is my reason for living, my reason for coming to work.

I would not be gotten into a schoolhouse until I was eight years old. Nor did I accomplish much after I started. I doubt if I had gone to school six months in all when my father died. I was fourteen at the time.

Therefore, I do not wish to consider any proposition to cede any portion of our tribal holdings to the Great Father.

My father was an agnostic.

My father taught me that the only way you can make good at anything is to practice, and then practice some more.

I want to be a soldier as my father was.

Theses officers were good friends, so it must have been a terrible argument, because the one who played chess with my father was so angry that he walked over to the dentist's house and got the dentist out of bed and shot him.

My father started me singing in church.

My father could have been deported because on his immigration application he said that he was a printer, obviously because he didn't want them to be checking his writings.

The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children.

Middle age is the awkward period when Father Time starts catching up with Mother Nature.

I think it's time to do clean-up for a generation. I believe this is one of the movies that hits home for all colors and all races. Everybody I talk to, black or white, suburban, rich or poor, can relate to rejection, can relate to not having a father or a mother.

A king, realizing his incompetence, can either delegate or abdicate his duties. A father can do neither. If only sons could see the paradox, they would understand the dilemma.