"I never doubted my ability, but when you hear all your life you're inferior, it makes you wonder if the other guys have something you've never seen before. If they do, I'm still looking for it."

"I'm not comfortable being preachy, but more people need to start spending as much time in the library as they do on the basketball court. If they took the idea that they could escape poverty through education, I think it would make a more basic and long-lasting change in the way things happen. What we need are positive, realistic goals and the willingness to work. Hard work and practical goals."

"I don't know what the future may hold, but I know who holds the future."

"Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them—a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill."

"He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life."

"Fear is a disease that eats away at logic and makes man inhuman."

"None of us is responsible for the complexion of his skin. This fact of nature offers no clue to the character or quality of the person underneath."

"You lose a lot of time, hating people."

"If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die."

"We really are fifteen different countries and it's really remarkable that each of us thinks we represent the real America. The midwesterner in Kansas, the black American in Durham—both are certain they are the real American."