Ben Askren Quotes

I've been in the twilight of my career longer than most people have had their career.

Baseball is going to end some day. I realize that as soon as you retire you know, people forget about you in this game fast! There's the next young guy coming up that's always better than you. So, for me, it's just about using baseball as a platform to do a lot of things.

I know too well how much I am going to miss football after my career for me to put up my own barriers.

I feel really good right now. It will really be a tough decision. It's so hard to give up what you love doing. Hanging up the boots will not be an easy thing to do.

I've always looked at my career as an athlete would look at his. I won't play forever. Some don't know when to walk away, but the smart ones do.

I've said many times in the past that my career's not going to go on much longer; I'm not going to keep going and riding until I'm in my 30s and things like this.

I think you always hope you can play forever, but you always realize that time will come... I was fortunate I was able to make a decision, move on and do it comfortably.

Fame is easy to acquire; impact is much more difficult.

I never felt I would get to the stage where I would to have to actively think about retiring from international football as I always thought it would pass me by.

I like to aim for significance over success because rarely can you be significant and also successful, but many people can be successful and not significant.

Too many fighters stay in the game for too long. They stay because it's awfully hard to walk away from the roar of the crowd. Really hard. You live for that and so you stay too long. And you might have a wife and kids to feed. So you keep fighting because you don't know how to do anything else.

No professional athlete likes to admit that he has played too long. There is too much money involved, rarely enough saved, and there is the eternal hope that age has not withered skills.

I didn't think 'The Room' was going to really go anywhere. But you know, in the back of your mind, you hope that any project you do is going to to go somewhere.

Your career goes fast, just a blink of an eye and you're an ex-baseball player, longer than you are a baseball player. I try not to think about it too much, but it seems like it does go fast.

I don't want to go on forever and leaving the sport is the hardest decision.

I think it's going to be the most difficult thing to do, to leave the stage. But if you have no lucidity about it, it's even worse because you don't see the negative side of you still being onstage.

I felt like when I retired, I was still one of the best in the world and competing at the highest level. I think it's best to bow out and have people remember you at your peak.

I am preparing myself to leave football. I have always thought that once you get past 30, it is time to reflect on when you should go, and that is what I have done.

There's always talk about going out on top, unfortunately for me that means going out on a loss but it's going out at the highest level. I'm happily satisfied and it makes a lot of sense to me.

As a race car driver, I don't think I will drive forever, because it is not so much a question of being competitive, but of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

For me, I just focus on playing, playing at a high level. And when you can't do that any longer, you've got to get off the train.

It's hard for an athlete to quit what he's done his whole life.

Time flies when you're changing the world.

I don't think you can ever leave the stage easily.

I don't want to be just the latest curiosity.