Athlete quotes
1.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside athlete — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Bill Russell is one of the great names in basketball, an all-American... and the only athlete to ever win an NCAA Championship, an Olympic Gold Medal, and a professional championship all in the same year-1956...But Bill Russell had this one problem: He threw up before every game."
"I think it went really well. There was part of me that really wanted to go with the rabbit. But, honestly one thing that I struggle with a lot is really just competing...being in a pack, running with a lot of bodies. I'm 17 and I'm still not really used to it, so the goal today was to just race."
"As an athlete, I'd average four hours a day. It doesn't sound like a lot when some people say they're training for 10 hours, but theirs includes lunch, massage and breaks. My four hours was packed with work."
"I focus on one thing and one thing only - that's trying to win as many championships as I can."
"I have struggled to be taken seriously as a female athlete. I have struggled to find my worth outside of winning. I have struggled to accept parts of myself. Now I'm recognizing the beauty in those parts as well as beauty in the times when things didn't go my way."
"Scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side with athletes and entertainers as role models."
"Our children, our grandchildren, our students, our young athletes. We need to be pouring leadership principles into them constantly, and teaching, and instructing them how to become good leaders in the future."
"The decathlon takes so long to learn that people who are good athletes don't want to go back to the beginning again."
"Athletes these days are too robotic. People like to see performances filled with emotion. In my career I tried to be amusing, to differentiate myself from the other champions."
"I have always liked a challenge."
"If I am treated fairly, I like to do things in a fair manner. That is the way I have been all my career. I haven't tried to do things in an underhanded way."
"I am surprised people took so long to pick up on the fact that my contract expires at the end of this year. Eddie has to decide who he wants to drive, so there is no secret anywhere. I am not concerned. It does not sit with my objectives to be competitive."
"I think at times I appear to be miserable when I am not... I might be having quite a good thought at that moment, but it seems I look miserable. I am not."
"I am not allowing myself to get carried away."
"It was five years since I'd won a race, so I was a bit bewildered."
"Male athletes don't get dropped when they father kids."
"I have been a Cowboys fan since I was a little bitty boy. And my dream has finally become a reality, of not only just playing a professional, becoming a professional athlete, but playing for the team that I always wanted to play for."
"I'm not Carl Lewis the athlete any more. I'm growing into a new person with new interests and new goals."
"I tell you, it was kind of two-fold. I fortunately had a lot of support. My coach was amazing - he told me to focus on being prepared and that is what I did. Every athlete is nervous - any athlete who tells you they're not nervous isn't telling you the truth. I was as prepared as I could be."
"I found the emotion that as an athlete you block out, and it really helped me to understand myself as a person. I'm a really emotional person and it helped make me a better person."
