Alastair Cook Quotes

It's emotional for every champion who decides to step down, it's a tough decision. It's probably easier for some, like me. But I'm just going to try to take it in stride. It's part of life.

I don't want to be considered a gymnast anymore.

I quit after a bad car accident. The thing about boxing is that you can be a star for five or six years, but when you go back to the old life, it's tough.

When I turned fifty, I decided to quit the mill and go to graduate school.

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

I won't be training at 60 years old, because I want to do something else in my life.

Parenting put music in the right place for me. Touring was always the first priority before, but it isn't any more. And, paradoxically, that has made my ability to make music much easier.

I am a very positive person, but you don't get taught how to deal with the end of your career. Never.

I quite clearly have made the right decision in my heart, retirement was the way.

I wasn't happy with how I left England. I didn't like where my mind was football wise. I felt like football was coming second.

I'm not working in football. Basically, I'm a father with two kids and taking some time for myself. I played for 25 years, and I believe I need some space for myself.

As soon as I signed for the French rugby union, it was just a huge relief, you know, because I was out of Sydney and out of sight doing what was best for myself.

I had told my wife that I was thinking of retiring at the end of the year. I was thinking I didn't want to do it anymore, but then I was traded to the Dodgers.

At the time I retired I was kind of known for it, as one of the guys whose career ended technically as a result of a big hit.

Retiring had nothing to do with love of the game. Nothing. It had to do with how I felt about myself. I needed the break.

I don't know where horse riding could have taken me, and it's something I can always go back to when I've retired from football, but the crossroads came in my life when Chelsea wanted to sign me and make me a professional footballer in 2013 when I was 20.

There comes a time in any proud sportsman's career when you have to make the difficult decision to stop.

When I stepped away two springs ago, I just really wanted to shift my priorities to be able to be more available and present to show up for things that I felt were mattering more than being a professional athlete.

After 11 seasons, I retired from football. Four months later I was in Ghana shooting 'Beasts of No Nation' as an executive producer.

It was funny because right before the whole band broke up, like, we were seven months' pregnant, so my life was going to transition anyway, whether the band was continuing or not.

The biggest relief off my shoulders was when I retired from Test cricket and I knew I didn't have to bowl 40 overs in a Test anymore.

I had been playing a lot of chess and I wasn't really enjoying it, so I decided to go to college to see what else is out there for me. But after about six or seven months away from the game, I just decided that the whole college life wasn't for me and that's why I decided to come back.

I'll never forget the day I went home and told my wife, 'I'll never be a kindergarten teacher.'

We're professional athletes, and we have moments where we step back, and we have to think and assess everything in life.

You can never say never in this game, but I can't see myself boxing again. There's loads of things I want to do.