Each strikeout brings me closer to my next homerun.

What I am, what I have, what I am going to leave behind me - all this I owe to the game of baseball.

If it wasn't for baseball, I'd be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery. I have the same violent temper my father and older brother had. Both died of injuries from street fights in Baltimore, fights begun by flare-ups of their tempers.

I had only one superstition. I made sure to touch all the bases when I hit a home run.

The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime.

I've heard people say that the trouble with the world is that we haven't enough great leaders. I think we haven't enough great followers. I have stood side by side with great thinkers - surgeons, engineers, economists; people who deserve a great following - and have heard the crowd cheer me instead.

It's hard to beat a person that never gives up.