Maybe I was born to play ball. Maybe I truly was.

I don't compare 'em, I just catch 'em.

I played with the Birmingham Black Barons. I was making 500 at 14. That was a lot of money in those days.

People talk about that catch and, I've said this many times, that I've made better catches than that many times in regular season. But of course in my time, you didn't have a lot of television during the regular season. A lot of people didn't see me do a lot of things.

When I was in Birmingham I used to go to a place called Redwood Field. I used to get there for a two o'clock game. Where can you make this kind of money playing sports? It was just a pleasure to go out and enjoy myself and get paid for it.

In 1950, when the Giants signed me, they gave me $15,000. I bought a 1950 Mercury. I couldn't drive, but I had it in the parking lot there, and everybody that could drive would drive the car. So it was like a community thing.

When I'm not hitting, I don't hit nobody. But, when I'm hitting, I hit anybody.

I'm a very lucky guy. I had so many people help me over the years that I never had many problems. If I had a problem, I could sit down with someone and they would explain the problem to me, and the problem become like a baseball game.

That's how easy baseball was for me. I'm not trying to brag or anything, but I had the knowledge before I became a professional baseball player to do all these things and know what each guy would hit.

Maybe I was born to play ball. Maybe I truly was.

Every time I look at my pocketbook, I see Jackie Robinson.

I was very fortunate to play sports. All the anger in me went out. I had to do what I had to do. If you stay angry all the time, then you really don't have a good life.

I would try and help everybody, because the game was so easy for me. It was just like walking in the park.

The greatest challenge I think is adjusting to not playing baseball. The reason for that is I had to come out of baseball and come into the business world, not being a college graduate, not being educated to come into the business world the way I should have.

I think I was the best baseball player I ever saw.

I don't mean to be bashful, but I was.

In order to excel, you must be completely dedicated to your chosen sport. You must also be prepared to work hard and be willing to accept constructive criticism. Without one-hundred percent dedication, you won't be able to do this.

If you can do that - if you run, hit, run the bases, hit with power, field, throw and do all other things that are part of the game - then you're a good ballplayer.

I was very blessed with a good body. Never got hurt. Never was in the hospital. The only time I was in the hospital was when I would get exhausted a little bit, and go in for a check-up or something.

Yes, I had to learn how to live life outside, but I had so many people help me.

When I got to professional ball I used to play 150 games every year. It depends on how many games there was.

And my father didn't have money for me to go to college. And at that particular time they didn't have black quarterbacks, and I don't think I could have made it in basketball, because I was only 5' 11". So I just picked baseball.

I think I was programmed to do good things when I came into the majors. I knew how to play.

At ten I was playing against 18-year-old guys. At 15 I was playing professional ball with the Birmingham Black Barons, so I really came very quickly in all sports.

It's not hard. When I'm not hitting, I don't hit nobody. But when I'm hitting, I hit anybody.

I was a baseball player, I taught baseball, and all of a sudden I was in the business world. Now I used the baseball world to talk about their product. Not too much, just enough to keep going. Just be yourself and you'll never have a problem. That's what I did.

Robinson was important to all blacks. To make it into the majors and to take all the name calling, he had to be something special. He had to take all this for years, not just for Jackie Robinson, but for the nation.

I always enjoyed playing ball, and it didn't matter to me whether I played with white kids or black. I never understood why an issue was made of who I played with, and I never felt comfortable, when I grew up, telling other people how to act.

Defense to me is the key to playing baseball.

I didn't say I was that smart, I said I went to class and I enjoyed what I was doing.

They throw the ball, I hit it. They hit the ball, I catch it.

Baseball is a game, yes. It is also a business. But what is most truly is is disguised combat. For all its gentility, its almost leisurely pace, baseball is violence under wraps.

Baseball is a game yes. It is also a business. But what it most truly is is disguised combat. For all its gentility its almost leisurely pace baseball is violence under wraps.

It isn't hard to be good from time to time in sports. What is tough, is being good every day

We should have a State in which we could live and breathe as free men and which we could develop according to our own lights and culture and where principles of Islamic social justice could find free play.

So, first you have to be able to play with a metronome. Then you take your freedom. If you play in an orchestra, you got to watch the conductor, he is like a metronome, but it is more difficult because he can change rhythms.

Never play anything that don't sound right. You might not make any money, but at least you won't get hostile with yourself.

A play is much easier to maintain your personal life with because if you're rehearsing, you're working like from 11 to 6 or 11 to 5 and you get to have your whole morning and your whole evening. When you're doing the play, you have all day.

I'd like to one day play Amanda, the mother, in The Glass Menagerie.

I couldn't be happier about being a part of 'Hunger Games' and to play Katniss. I have a huge responsibility to the fans of this incredible book and I don't take it lightly. I will give everything I have to these movies and to this role to make it worthy of Suzanne Collins' masterpiece.

For years the Trio did nothing but play for musicians and other hip people. We practically starved to death.

If you give it good concentration, good energy, good heart and good performance, the song will play you.

Genius is not a possession of the limited few, but exists in some degree in everyone. Where there is natural growth, a full and free play of faculties, genius will manifest itself.

I mean when the play was on in New York I was starting to get film offers coming through, and since the film's come out I get offered more than I used to, but it happens incrementally.

If Davis Cup was a little bit less or once every two years, I would be more inclined to play. But the way it is now, it is too much tennis for me.

I remember him watching me through the crack of a door singing with a hairbrush. I was in front of his mirror. I think he wanted me to sing. He would get me on the table and make me sing sometimes or play the piano. He was very encouraging on that front.

If you watch a game, it's fun. If you play it, it's recreation. If you work at it, it's golf.

You have to like the characters you play.

Good directors say, Here's where the play is. They stand by the heart of the matter. Some of them stand beside it.