If I hadn't become a professional basketball player, I would have become a history teacher. There's so much to learn from history.

I could have skated by as an athlete, but the world is so much bigger and more interesting than any one thing. I didn't want to be pigeonholed as just a jock. I'm also an author, a student of history, and I collect memorabilia from the Wild West. I'm also a son, a father, and a friend.

OK, I'll put it like this: I doubt if we will see another All-American basketball athlete who is a Rhodes Scholar.

My choosing Islam was not a political statement; it was a spiritual statement.

Each story, novel, poem and play presents a vision of the world that illuminates the dark cave of life we stumble through. We can see better where we're going, what sudden drop to avoid, where the cool water is running.

I've always tried to stay out of the fray and not be an object of controversy.

You can't win unless you learn how to lose.