When I was a teenager, I was so dumb my mamma knocked me off the porch with a broom. You wish you had so good a mamma.

I believe that if you die trying to be your best, the world is still a better place.

It took me a long time to figure out that real big-time success comes from taking lots of small, ordinary steps in the right direction. And you can't ever take the next step until you take the first.

The only rules not meant to be broken are those of love and virtue.

Somebody told me when Abe Lincoln was a young man, studying by firelight, he said, "I will work hard. I will prepare myself. And my time will come." And you know, that's exactly what I said about myself and football - What do you think? Were Abe and I both just lucky ducks?

I was the originator of smack. Some guys rattle with smack; with other guys it rolls right off their shoulders like nothing.

When I flew from Orlando to Los Angeles in 1960, I sat next to a guy from Disney who was paying 75¢ an acre for land. I thought he was some special kind of fool - and since they built the park, history has proven there was a fool sitting in one of our seats.