A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.

Life is not a spectator sport. If you're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you're wasting your life

Above anything else, I hate to lose

The right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time

There's not an American in this country free until every one of us is free

The way I figured it, I was even with baseball and baseball with me. The game had done much for me, and I had done much for it.

Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he's losing nobody wants you to quit when you're ahead.