When you mail Ichiro something from the States, you only have to use that name on the address and he gets it (in Japan). He's that big.

I had a dream. And I made that dream come true.

In baseball, even the best hitters fail seven of ten times, and of those seven failures there are different reasons why. Some are personal failures, others are losses to the pitcher. You just get beat. In those personal failures, I felt I could have done better.

When people get placed upon a pedestal - when they start chasing after that person on the pedestal - they become mannequin-like.

Personally, I don't like the term 'success.' It's too arbitrary and too relative a thing. It's usually someone else's definition, not yours.

I wanted the challenge of competing against the best players in the world.

I didn't know I hit that way (.625 with runners in scoring position). Maybe not knowing is my secret. If I chased numbers, maybe I wouldn't have as good results.