Athlete Quotes

I like to push characters to extremes so they have to make really tough decisions and there is no life more extreme than that of an athlete. (Chris Cleave)
I didn't want to be a dancer... I just did it to work my way through college. But I was always an athlete and gymnast, so it came naturally. View quote
Gene Kelly
Desire is the most important factor in the success of any athlete. View quote
Bill Shoemaker
I was always a mean and lean athlete - not tall - not large. View quote
Edwin Moses
A good athlete always mentally replays a competition over and over, even in victory, to see what might be done to improve the performance the next time. View quote
Frank Shorter
Growing up, I started developing confidence in what I felt. My parents helped me to believe in myself. I wasn't the best looking guy, I wasn't the best athlete in the world, but they made me feel good about myself. View quote
Herschel Walker
I'm not going to relate to an athlete as a peer. View quote
Lisa Guerrero
I think the people who have really followed my career from the time I was seven years old can see my steady progress and see the type of person and athlete I am. View quote
Marion Jones
Overall, I think Michael Jordan is the greatest athlete in any particular sport. He dominated the game for the Chicago Bulls and brought the NBA to its greatest peak of popularity. View quote
Will McDonough
Developing the muscles of the soul demands no competitive spirit, no killer instinct, although it may erect pain barriers that the spiritual athlete must crash through. View quote
Germaine Greer
That's what I wanted! I wanted to be an athlete, I wanted the girls to like me, and I wanted to be able to get good grades in school, and this man said I could do all that. (Jack LaLanne)
Life, to me, is a series of false limits and my challenge as an athlete is to explore those limits on a bike. View quote
Lance Armstrong
One of the redeeming things about being an athlete is redefining what is humanly possible. View quote
Lance Armstrong
Paula, your retirement is the one that every athlete dreams. View quote
Milagros Cabral
Ted Seabrooke, my wrestling coach, had a kind of Nietzschean effect on me in terms of not just his estimation of my limited abilities, but his decidedly philosophical stance about how to conduct your life, what you should do to compensate for your limitations. This was essential to me, both as a student-and not a good one-and as a wrestler who was not a natural athlete but who had found something he loved. View quote
John Irving
A competitive athlete is painful to look at; trying hard to become an animal rather than a man, he will never be as fast as a cheetah or as strong as an ox. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The actor becomes an emotional athlete. The process is painful - my personal life suffers. View quote
Al Pacino
I had no natural gift to be anything - not an athlete, not an actor, not a writer, not a director, a painter of garden porches - not anything. So I've worked really hard, because nothing ever came easily to me. View quote
Paul Newman
Everyone who makes films has to be an athlete to a certain degree because cinema does not come from abstract academic thinking; it comes from your knees and thighs. View quote
Werner Herzog
We learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. One becomes in some area an athlete of God. View quote
Martha Graham
I wanted no part of politics. And I wasn't in Berlin to compete against any one athlete. The purpose of the Olympics, anyway, was to do your best. As I'd learned long ago... the only victory that counts is the one over yourself. (Jesse Owens)
America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week. View quote
Evan Esar
My worst vice is gluttony. I try to keep myself under control because I'm an athlete, but once a week I like to pig out and act like a normal person. View quote
Gianluigi Buffon
Sweet it is to lay aside the weight of the body and to soar into the pure bright ether. Do you dread poverty? Christ calls the poor blessed. (Luke 6:20) Does toil frighten you? No athlete is crowned but in the sweat of his brow. Are you anxious as regards food? Faith fears no famine. Do you dread the bare ground for limbs wasted with fasting? The Lord lies there beside you. Do you recoil from an unwashed head and uncombed hair? Christ is your true head. Does the boundless solitude of the desert terrify you? In the spirit you may walk always in paradise. Do but turn your thoughts there and you will be no more in the desert. View quote
Jerome
In climbing, sponsors typically support an athlete but provide very little direction, giving the climber free rein to follow his or her passion toward whatever is inspiring. It's a wonderful freedom, in many ways similar to that of an artist who simply lives his life and creates whatever moves him. View quote
Alex Honnold