Jim Bouton Quotes

Every time I get in the ring, I have to give 110 per cent because my opponents have nothing to lose and everything to gain, so I have to make sure I go in there with my A-game and come away with the victory.

I could think of worse ways of going than at the poker table.

Nowadays, the difference between athletes is really small, and if you can get an edge, why not take it.

I think pro-athletes should be forced to use steroids. I think we as fans deserve the greatest athletes science can create! Lets go! Anything that will make you run faster, jump higher! I have High-Definition TV! I want my athletes like my video games! Lets go! I could care less if you die at 40. You hate life after sports anyways. I'm doing you a favor.

Any time you risk big you often risk losing big. You can win big but you can also lose big, but you have to be willing to take those risks.

Into the sky to win or die.

I managed 26 years and found out when I retired I didn't own the game. I thought I owned it when I was managing all those years. You can climb to the top of the mountain, get down on your knees and kiss the ground, because you'll never own that mountain. That mountain is only owned by one single person, and he'll never give it up. That's the way baseball is.

I began to feel that I lived on a higher plane than the skeptics of the ground; one that was richer because of its very association with the element of danger they dreaded, because it was freer of the earth to which they were bound. In flying, I tasted a wine of the gods of which they could know nothing. Who valued life more highly, the aviators who spent it on the art they loved, or these misers who doled it out like pennies through their antlike days? I decided that if I could fly for ten years before I was killed in a crash, it would be a worthwhile trade for an ordinary life time.

If I win I can't be stopped! If I lose I shall be dead.

A man should not risk his life for beauty alone, Kiall, for that fades. You might as well risk it for a rose. Think on it.

Death forerunneth Love to win "Sweetest eyes were ever seen."

If I hadn't met those two guys (Billy Martin and Whitey Ford) at the start of my career, I would have lasted another five years.

It gives me some kind of chance to survive the night." "How are those better odds? If you come back with me, you're guaranteed to survive the night." "No," Reacher said. "If I come back with you, I'm guaranteed to die of shame.

Security is the denial of life

The devotion of the greatest is to encounter risk and danger, and play dice for death.

Performance enhancing drugs are banned in the Olympics. OK, we can swing with that. But performance 'debilitating' drugs should not be banned. Smoke a joint and win the 100 metres, fair play for you. That's pretty good. Unless someone's dangling a Mars bar off in the distance.

People say I don't have great tools. They say that I can't throw like Ellis Valentine or run like Tim Raines or hit with power like Mike Schmidt. Who can? I make up for it in other ways, by putting out a little bit more. That's my theory, to go through life hustling. In the big leagues, hustle usually means being in the right place at the right time. It means backing up a base. It means backing up your teammate. It means taking that headfirst slide. It means doing everything you can do to win a baseball game.

You can never begin to live until you dare to die.

And as a football coach in the National Football League, I know for sure that it's going to end someday.

There are a lot of guys kind of on the bubble that can either be that sort who turn into journeyman kind of guys that will find a new spot or guys that can make a claim to be in one place for a long time. You can name a lot of names this year, an unusual number. And I think that most of them will be OK.

This is my best time of the year (spring training). Heck, once the season starts, I go to work.

The life of a professional golfer is precarious at best. Win, and they carry you to the clubhouse on their shoulders. Lose, and you pay the caddies in the dark.

I dislike death, however, there are some things I dislike more than death. Therefore, there are times when I will not avoid danger.

This 20th win means more to me than the perfect game in 1968.