33 Sport Quotes

That was always the difference between Muhammad Ali and the rest of us. He came, he saw, and if he didn't entirely conquer - he came as close as anybody we are likely to see in the lifetime of this doomed generation.

People say that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals. There was no television, no big advertising, no endorsements then. Not for a black man, anyway.

If you don't try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody's back yard. The thrill of competing carries with it the thrill of a gold medal. One wants to win to prove himself the best.

Swimming is not a sport; swimming is a way to keep from drowning. That's just common sense!

Sport, that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter, holding both his sides. Come, and trip it, as you go. On the light fantastic toe.

The silliest and most tendentious of baseball writing tries to wrest profundity from the spectacle of grown men hitting a ball with at stick by suggesting linkages between the sport and deep issues of morality, parenthood, history, lost innocence, gentleness, and so on, seemingly ad infinitum. (The effort reeks of silliness because baseball is profound all by itself and needs no excuses; people who don't know this are not fans and are therefore unreachable anyway.)

Golf is like chasing a quinine pill around a cow pasture.

He is interested in the feelings of the squash ball, and of the champagne bottle that launches the ship. In a football match his sympathy is not with either of the teams but with the ball, or, in a match ending nil-nil, with the hunger of the goalmouth.

It's gonna be a a killa, a chilla, and a thrilla when I get that gorilla in Manila.

I can't honestly say that I appreciate the way in which he [Ruth] changed baseball, but he was the most natural and unaffected man I ever knew. God, how I miss him.

There's no doubt in my mind that if Bruce Lee had gone into pro boxing, he could easily have ranked in the top three in the lightweight division or junior-welterweight division.

I wanted to do in boxing what Bruce Lee was able to do in the martial arts. Lee was an artist and, like him, I try to get beyond the fundamentals of my sport. I want my fights to be seen as plays.

For a guy who had retired ostensibly, your comeback represents the greatest event since Satchel Paige.

Isn't it ironic Vince, that 7 months ago I was in this ring kissing your ass. Now, 7 months later you're in the same very ring kissing mine.

[In a Scottish Accent] Here's my idea for a fucking sport...I knock a ball into a gopher hole. 'Oh you mean like pool?' Fuck off pool! Not with a straight stick. With a little fucked up stick. I whack the ball, it goes in a gopher hole. 'Oh like croquet?' Fuck croquet! I put the hole hundreds of yards away. Oh yeah, whack the ball and it goes in the little fucking hole! 'Oh, so it's like a bowling thing?' Fuck no! Not straight, I put shit in the way! Like trees and bushes and high grass! So you can lose your fucking ball and go whackin' away with a tire iron. Whackin' away, and each time you miss you feel like you're gonna have a stroke. Fuck! That's what we'll call it! A stroke, cause every time you miss you feel like you're gonna fucking die! Oh great and here's the best part-oh fuck this is brilliant! Right near the end I'll put a little flat piece with a little tiny flag to give you fucking hope! But then I'll put a pool and a sandbox to fuck with your ball again! You'll be trashin' yer arse, jerkin' away in the sand, ah-hah! 'And you do this one time?'... FUCK NO! EIGHTEEN FUCKIN' TIMES!

Golf is a good walk spoiled.

Fate ginnastica e non medicina. Abbandonate i libri e datevi all'ippica.

I'm a ham. I was immediately attracted to fencing because it seemed like a romantic, melodramatic form of combat.

A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.

'He's not George Best, but then again, no-one is.' (Commentator Clive Tyldesley.)

A golf course is the epitome of all that is purely transitory in the universe; a space not to dwell in, but to get over as quickly as possible.

He could hit a whole bucket of balls from there and not get one closer than that.

The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.

When I see young men doing so wonderfully well in athletics, I don't feel angry at them. I feel jealous of them. I wish that some of my boys in writing would do the same thing.... You must have form - performance. The thing itself is indescribable, but it is felt like athletic form. To have form, feel form in sports - and by analogy feel form in verse. One works and waits for form in both. As I said, the person who spends his time criticizing the play around him will never write poetry. He will write criticism.

Watch my dust.