Larry Bird Quotes

A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals.

Push yourself again and again. Don't give an inch until the final buzzer sounds.

Don't let winning make you soft. Don't let losing make you quit. Don't let your teammates down in any situation.

I've got a theory that if you give 100% all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end.

I learned what my weaknesses were and I went out the next day to turn those weaknesses intro strengths.

Leadership is diving for a loose ball, getting the crowd involved, getting other players involved. It's being able to take it as well as dish it out. That's the only way you're going to get respect from the players.

My coach told me, "Larry, no matter how much you work at it, there's always someone out there who's working just a little harder - if you take 150 practice shots, he's taking 200." And that drove me.

While day by day the overzealous student stores up facts for future use, he who has learned to trust nature finds need for ever fewer external directions. He will discard formula after formula, until he reaches the conclusion: Let nature take its course.

Practice habits were crucial to my development in basketball. I didn't play against the toughest competition in high school, but one reason I was able to do well in college was that I mastered the fundamentals. You've got to have them down before you can even think about playing.

I wasn't real quick, and I wasn't real strong. Some guys will just take off and it's like, whoa. So I beat them with my mind and my fundamentals.

There are many times when you are better off practicing than playing; but most people just don't understand that

Leadership is getting players to believe in you. If you tell a teammate you're ready to play as tough as you're able to, you'd better go out there and do it. Players will see right through a phony. And they can tell when you're not giving it all you've got.

I don't think that once you get to one level, you can relax. You've got to keep pushing.

You're all playin' for second place.

I hate to lose more than I like to win.

It doesn't matter who scores the points, it's who can get the ball to the scorer.

First master the fundamentals.

I don't know if I practiced more than anybody, but I sure practiced enough. I still wonder if somebody - somewhere - was practicing more than me.

You never make any of the shots you never take. 87% of the ones you do take, you'll miss too. I make 110% of my shots.

You can make all the excuses you want, but if you're not mentally tough and you're not prepared to play every night, you're not going to win.

As far as playing, I didn't care who guarded me - red, yellow, black. I just didn't want a white guy guarding me, because it's disrespect to my game.

It makes me sick when I see a guy just stare at a loose ball and watch it go out of bounds.

Michael Jordan is God disguised as a basketball player.

When I go to the line I'm thinking 'All net.' When I don't think that, I'm likely to miss.

Strength is not nearly as important as desire. I don't think you can teach anyone desire. I think it's a gift. I don't know why I have it, but I do.

When I was young, I never wanted to leave the court until I got things exactly correct. My dream was to become a pro.

The one thing that always bothered me when I played in the NBA was I really got irritated when they put a white guy on me.

Before every game I used to go out and shot the same shots over and over and over. In the summer time I spent a lot of time just shooting. So really it just came natural. Whether it's a tie game or down by 1 or up by five, it was always the same shot. So I always felt comfortable with the ball in my hands because it was in there a million times before.

Eminem. My son was listening to that and I was like, “What is that junk?” Then I started listening and I thought, You know, that kid is pretty good. It's the storytelling.

When I was a kid, like 14 or 15, I played with the waiters from the hotel, 'cause that was the best game. And these guys, they'd let me play. And they were black guys.

I'm a firm believer in that you play the way you practice.

I just shoot until I feel good.

Basketball has been my life and I worked at it so hard because I enjoyed it so much.

Maybe it's God disguised as Michael Jordan.

The best players will play. That's the way it will always be.

The more you win, the better you're gonna get. It grows on itself.

I knew I was as good as anybody. That's not really bragging; it's just that I'd put the time in.

I really don't like talking about money. All I can say is that the Good Lord must have wanted me to have it.

I used to love the feeling of running, of running too far. It made my skin tingle.

Once you are labeled 'the best' you want to stay up there, and you can't do it by loafing around.

In the closing seconds of every game, I want the ball in my hands for the last shot - not in anybody else's, not in anybody else's in the world.

When it gets down to it, basketball is basketball.

I mean, the greatest athletes in the world are African-American.

Basketball was always a game to me. One of the greatest things in life for me was to be able to play what I loved dearly and get paid for it. So it was always a game to me and that's how I perceived everything.

Coaches can talk and talk and talk about something, but if you get it on tape and show it to them, it is so much more effective.

I've always been interested in jobs in the NBA. But I've been in this for 20 years and it might be time to do something else.

My name's been on this check for a week now.

I have always been confident in my skills and once the game got going I knew I was probably the best player on the floor most of the time whether it was junior high, high school or college. I knew I had control of the game.

My opinion about basketball, the way I was taught, was when you step on the court, you play to win.

When I was a player, I didn't expect my teammates to play the way I did. I did expect them to work hard every day and get better. And I never learned anything by losing.