Pete Sampras Quotes

Sports is about balls and about heart and you don't find too many champions in any sport in the world without heart or balls. He might have them, but against Nadal they shrink to a very small size and it's not once, it's every time.

The power of the human will to compete and the drive to excel beyond the body's normal capabilities is most beautifully demonstrated in the arena of sport.

There's no question that the striving, the stuff that you got out of [sports]. The depending on someone right beside you. Sitting here and calling on yourself when you're tired or getting through something painful, watching your teammates do the same. Everybody feels good when you first walk out there.

Hockey s a funny game. You have to prove yourself every shift, every game. It's not up to anybody else. You have to take pride in yourself.

To be competitive on the court is just a fun thing.

I have more respect for amateur wrestlers, especially collegiate ones, than anyone else. It's a gutsy sport with no real payoff except for knowing that you were better than someone else. It doesn't have big crowds, it doesn't have big money, but it is fun going one on one.

I try not to make a habit of spending the whole year losing in the first rounds of events, but tennis is one of those sports where nothing is guaranteed.

Once you get out there and start playing basketball, whether the NBA or college or whatever arena you are playing in or who you are playing in front of, the juices start going, and you want to just go out there and play to the best of your abilities.

There are no excuses in fighting. You can be playing a team sport and have a good game, and you can lose. In fighting, it's all on me. If I go out there and lose, then it's my fault. I like that.

To me, wrestling always comes first.

I mean, who doesn't love one-on-one match-ups?

In college, I prided myself on defense and guarding the best player every night.

The main reason I'm in this sport is not to run mouths and make posts on Twitter and stuff. It's to compete.

Every play, I'm trying to get as many shots on the opposing team as I can, so when you get to the fourth quarter, they obviously don't want to be on the field anymore.

I've learned that football is a stupid sport for intelligent people because the simplest things are truly also the most difficult to get right.

I relate football with boxing, with a street fight. In both cases there is always one moment, a second, in which someone shows fear in their eyes, in their body. In football it's exactly the same.

You have to know when to stop in this sport. It's very hard.

Swimmers do not get a lot of telly time so you are not dealing with a lot of egos.

I think most of my lessons come from sports. That's why I always emphasise to young kids to get involved in sports because it's where you learn about discipline. It's where you learn to keep going, where if you think you can't make it, you can.

The only place you can win a football game is on the field, the only place you can lose it is in your hearts.

I've played with Mardy Fish a lot. Played with him, I think, two years ago in one of the weekend rounds.

Baseball and football are very different games. In a way, both of them are easy. Football is easy if you're crazy as hell. Baseball is easy if you've got patience. They'd both be easier for me if I were a little more crazy - and a little more patient.

I'm very happy to be back playing rugby for England again - there were times when I questioned if this would happen.

In training, you listen to your body. In competition, you tell your body to shut up.

There's a confidence and a mental toughness that comes from the very highest level of competition, whatever the sport is. Whether it's boxing or wrestling, or whatever.