"Every strike brings me closer to the next home run "
— George Herman Ruth

"The problem with winter sports is that -- follow me closely here -- they generally take place in winter."
— Dave Barry

"The center snaps the ball to the quarterback!"
"No he doesn't!"
"He doesn't?"
"NO! Secretly, he's the quarterback for the other team! He keeps the ball!"
"A traitor!"
"Calvin breaks for the goal."
"Wheeee! He's at the 30... the 20... the 10! Nobody can catch him!"
"Nobody wants to! Your running toward your own goal!"
"Huh?!"
"When I learned that you were a spy, I switched goals. This is your goal and mine's hidden!"
"Hidden?!"
"You'll never find it in a million years!"
"I don't need to find it as a traitor to your team, crossing my goal counts as crossing your goal!"
"Ah, so you might think so..."
"In fact, I know so!"
"But the place I hid my goal is right on top of your goal, so the points will go to me!"
"But the fact is, I'm really a double agent! I'm on your team after all, which means you'll lose points if I cross your goal! Ha ha!"
"But I'm a traitor too, so I'm really on your team! I want you to cross my goal! The points will go to your team, which is really my team!"
"That would be true... if I were a football player!"
"You mean...?"
"I'm actually a badminton player disguised as a double-agent football player!!"
"And I'm actually a volleyball-croquet-polo player!"
"Sooner or later, all our games turn into CalvinBall."
"No cheating!"
— Bill Watterson

"Have you noticed that whatever sport you're trying to learn, some earnest person is always telling you to keep your knees bent? "
— Dave Barry

"I love the Olympics, because they enable people from all over the world to come together and--regardless of their political or cultural differences--accuse each other of cheating."
— Dave Barry (Boogers Are My Beat: More Lies, But Some Actual Journalism!)

"Winning is a habit. Unfortunately so is losing."
— Vince Lombardi

"I later discovered that in order to be a good athlete one must care intensely what is happening with a ball, even if one doesn't have possession of it. This was ultimately my failure: my inability to work up a passion for the location of balls."
— Haven Kimmel (Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana)

"If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead."
— Erma Bombeck

"The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start."
— John Bingham (No Need for Speed: A Beginner's Guide to the Joy of Running)

"Many people say I'm the best women's soccer player in the world. I don't think so. And because of that, someday I just might be."
— Mia Hamm

"One hundred percent of the shots you don't take don't go in."
— Wayne Gretzky

"I think all of us are looking for that which does not admit of bullshit . . . If you tell me you can bench press 450, hell, we'll load up the bar and put you under it. Either you can do it or you can't do it—you can't bullshit. Ultimately, sports are just about as close to what one would call the truth as it is possible to get in this world."
— Harry Crews (Getting Naked With Harry Crews: Interviews)

"Outcasts may grow up to be novelists and filmmakers and computer tycoons, but they will never be the athletic ruling class."
— Chuck Klosterman (Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto)

"Guys care about sports teams. I'm not talking about simply rooting; I'm talking about a relationship that guys develop, a commitment to a sport team that guys take way more seriously than, for example, wedding vows."
— Dave Barry (Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys)

""In my vocabulary I CAN'T isn't a phrase.""
— Coach Shawn

"Everything you need is already inside."
— Bill Bowerman

""The world doesn't want to hear about the labor pains, it only wants to see the baby.""
— Johnny Sain as told to Jim Bouton in Ball Four

"There are no environments where you're only going to win, because life just isn't like that. "
— Bobby Orr

"Some seek the comfort of their therapist's office, other head to the corner pub and dive into a pint, but I chose running as my therapy."
— Dean Karnazes (Ultramarathon Man)

"There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games."
— Ernest Hemingway

"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. "
— Eric Cantona

"My best moment? I have a lot of good moments but the one I prefer is when I kicked the hooligan"
— Eric Cantona

"I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Football. Bloody hell."
— Alex Ferguson

"Developing better people should be the number one goal for any coach when dealing with kids. In trying to develop better people, we are going to develop more and better pros."
— Bobby Orr

"He just got hit so hard he's sweating teriyaki sauce!"
— Ron Wolfley, Sportscaster

"In the dust of defeat as well as the laurels of victory there is a glory to be found if one has done his best."
— Eric Liddell

"Like all the other arrivals to the tournament, Hank had erected a banner in front. It was a long, tapering pennant with a blue and red circular design in the center and the words GO CUBS! on both sides.
"Interesting," said Hugo. "What does it mean?"
"It was a gift from Sam," Hank explained as they entered the tent. "He said it used to represent Triumph over Adversity, but now better represents Impossible Quests and Lost Causes."
"I think I preferred not knowing that," said Hugo.
Hank grinned. "You're a Sox fan too, hey?""
— James A. Owen, "The Indigo King"

"I didn't cry when they buried my father - I wouldn't let myself. I didn't cry when they buried my sister. On Thursday night, with my family asleep upstairs, my eyes filled as Agassi and Marcos Baghdatis played out the fifth set of their moving second-round match."
— Greg Garber

"Sports is to war as pornography is to sex."
— Jonathan Haidt

"I haven't celebrated coming in No. 2 too many times."
— Mark Messier

"Flowers are the free throw of love. You're looking for the clutch three-pointer from downtown."
— Daniel Holloway & Dorothy Robinson

"I'm the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be."
— Bret Hart

"Sure, there is an undeniable pleasure in rooting for a winning team and in being able to look down on opposing fans with equal measures of superiority and disdain. But that's also the Ruthian drawback in rooting for the Yankees (along with high ticket prices, overpriced concessions and crude neighbors). The true pleasure in sports comes not from simply winning but from watching a team overcome adversity to win in the end. The joy of sports is never the final destination, it's the journey. It's experiencing the highs and lows, and appreciating those highs all the more because of the awful lows. "
— Jim Caple

"Revolution is a spectators sport. The majority will sit in the stands and watch the factions fight. At the end they will choose side with the team that is winning. "
— George Lincoln Rockwell