David Beckham Quotes

But I'll tell you this: When I lose my athleticism, it's time to go.

You know, even though I feel that I can still play the game, God has made the answer clear to me. Retirement is now. I have to retire as a Green Bay Packer.

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

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

I think fitness and performance levels are the right indicators to determine if it's the time to leave the scene.

I have no regrets about my career or retiring. Not once have I thought 'Gosh, I wish I was back on the court.

I'm retiring because my time is up.

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.

My biggest fear had always been getting hurt, and not being able to leave the game as a player on my own terms.

I won't be skating for the rest of my life, that's for sure.

I think that at the close of next November, I ought to hang up the boxing gloves.

One minute you're starting left fielder, hitting home runs; the next, it's career over. I was 20.

What people don't understand is the summertime is motivation - how willing you're willing to work for the upcoming season - and I think, as older players, once you see that drive fall off in the summer, then I think it's time to hang it up.

When you retire from baseball, you have until the day you die to rest.

A sort of sadness shall always remain in my mind that I was not allowed to retire while playing, but anyway, it's all a part of life for a sportsman who, while playing, never realises when he should retire, but he starts thinking about it when he is dropped.

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

You want to be prepared for when you have to stop playing.

It's hard to know when to call it a day as a footballer.

No matter how good of a ball player you were, you can't keep going forever. You're not going to be able to hit .300 when you're 60. You still look around and you think, 'This is weird. Have I missed something?' Well, yeah, you have.

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.

Me not being able to play the way that I can play, that's when you kind of know it's that time.

Obviously, everyone knows it is hard to hang it up, but I'm definitely going to try and do it the right way and not like how combat athletes have done and hold on too long for every last fleeting moment. I don't want to be one of those people.

I look at a lot of players that left the game, I'm sure they think about if they should have stayed.

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.