David Eagleman Quotes

The piano is kind of my second instrument.

I had such a tie with my eyes and my hands. I could look at a telephone pole 40 yards away, take out a 7-iron, and hit it 10 times in a row. I had something special. And somehow, I really understood the game, all without having a lot of guidance.

My whole career, my swing has always been the most important thing to me. Even when I'm taking a shower, I work on my swing.

The thing about tennis is if you stay off for two weeks, or just for three days, you can lose your rhythm quickly. So it's just a question of constant diligence and vigilance.

Whether you are on stage or playing golf, all it takes is one person to throw everything off.

I would be trying to play hockey with my friends, but most of the time, the coach put me on the bench. Because I was too dreamy - I was dreaming all of the time. I was super bad on the ice because I was just thinking about something else.

I need to focus on getting to the free-throw line and knocking them down in practice and getting them in the game.

The more reps you get, the more you calm down and the less thinking you're doing. Then you just go out and play.

Anyway, when I get sorta tense and start thinking about every shot, that's when my game falls apart.

I make 18 three-footers after every round. It's just something that helps me focus on routine, and helps me hear the ball go in the hole. It's something I do every day.

Everything is mental, but if you just remember to stay with your same technique, you will be fine. If you stay confident, make sure you are doing the same thing over and over; the free throws will fall.

You'll begin to act when you can forget your technique - when it is so securely inside you that you need not call upon it consciously.

To become really good at anything, you have to practice and repeat, practice and repeat, until the technique becomes intuitive.

How you think, and how much you think, is so important in golf. There are countless things we can work on and think about in the swing, but when it's time to play in competition, you don't want to think too many thoughts.

How you practice in nets matters a lot.

When I get onto the pitch, I block out everything around it, and I really focus on the pitch.

Fingers don't have much to do with playing the piano. The idea that they do must be unlearned.

I learn how to put myself in situations at practice that cause me to zone in on what I'm trying to accomplish at meets. I try to make my practice surrounding as close to competition pressure to focus on what I need to do on the big stage.

With snooker, having three months off could have a huge long-term effect on your game. It's not like football, where there's a huge margin of error with touch and passing and shooting. With snooker you're talking about millimetre precision and your technique can vary a lot if you don't retain muscle memory.

For some reason, I can really tune in in the majors, and I have no idea why. They really get my attention.

I'm not very good at playing piano, so I usually hit chords with my right hand. And those chords came, and I was just singing a little bit.

I think the people that are best at something, they don't think about it much. That's the whole key to being good at anything.

Before every game I used to go out and shot the same shots over and over and over. In the summer time I spent a lot of time just shooting. So really it just came natural. Whether it's a tie game or down by 1 or up by five, it was always the same shot. So I always felt comfortable with the ball in my hands because it was in there a million times before.

Never have your wallet with you onstage. It's bad luck. You shouldn't play the piano with money in your pocket. Play like you need the money.

If I had stood at the free-throw line and thought about 10 million people watching me on the other side of the camera lens, I couldn't have made anything. So I mentally tried to put myself in a familiar place. I thought about all those times I shot free throws in practice and went through the same motion, the same technique that I had used thousands of times. You forget about the outcome. You know you are doing the right things. So you relax and perform.