Above anything else, I hate to lose.

I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.

Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he's losing; nobody wants you to quit when you're ahead.

I don't think that I or any other Negro, as an American citizen, should have to ask for anything that is rightfully his. We are demanding that we just be given the things that are rightfully ours and that we're not looking for anything else.

I don’t think it matters what I believe, only what I do.

It's not easy to be a martyr in the field of race relations.

It kills me to lose. If I'm a troublemaker, and I don't think that my temper makes me one, then it's because I can't stand losing. That's the way I am about winning, all I ever wanted to do was finish first.