Penny Hardaway Quotes

I hope I can make the decision to give up before my legs give up on me. I do not want to be embarrassing on the field and feel one day that I'm not at my best and players can beat me easily in duels.

If I can't hit at a high level, I won't play, and I know there comes a point where my body won't be able to do that.

The natural urge when running a distance is to push harder and finish sooner - to race against time. Every second behind a deadline is a little defeat.

I don't have muscle tone. I'm just flab. I'm not a daredevil. I don't like pain, I don't like cold, I don't want to feel exhausted. But the sense of accomplishment is something I've never felt before, in a physical sense.

To have any doubt in your body is the biggest weakness an athlete can have. There are times when I physically can't get myself to go for a skill because I'm thinking, 'My knee hurts really bad.'

I'm looking to get in the best shape possible for London and not worrying about rivals.

What it is saying is that someone who was a world champion and who takes care of himself with a 17-year rest and applies the proper training techniques and perseverance could be successful.

I think every athlete will tell you no matter what sport you're in, when you train so hard and when you care so much about doing what you do, there's a little bit of nerves that come with that. But nerves that won't prevent you form performing, nerves that, hopefully, allow you to be that much more motivated and inspired to do well.

I had discipline in other areas but certainly not in athletics.

There are a lot of details to running that I never even thought about. I just went out and ran. I think I can be faster. I think I can be quicker.

You can only do so much in the gym or pool. Seventy per cent of it is physical, but the final 30 per cent is down to the mental capacity to actually control what you can do in competition.

Where the marathon starts is after 30 kilometers. That's where you feel pain everywhere in your body. The muscles are really aching, and only the most prepared and well-organized athlete is going to do well after that.

My players need to have the feeling that they've pushed themselves to their limits.

There will be a time when I physically cannot do this sport.

Being involved in sports, you think less about how your body looks and more how it performs.

Some players need pressure to get the best out of themselves.

Every training session you take part in, you have to work very hard and train hard because there is no other way to get where you want to be - it's not a secret and not a magic formula - just hard work and application.

By running the N.Y.C. Marathon in 2008, I became a runner and I think that's what works the best for me and keeps my body the way I like it to be.

I had always been proud of my body - its strength and grace enabled me to pursue my passions.

I'm not the perfect model of what an athlete should be, mentally or physically.

I gave up tennis to study, but not before it had shown me how to focus and concentrate. It taught me self-discipline: I was playing four or five hours a day and doing five-mile runs. When I stopped, my energy had to be channelled into something else.

You work every day technically, physically but so much is in the mind. Look at when players go on big scoring runs, then stop scoring. It's not that they are any different physically, it's very often mental, confidence, concentration.

For every athlete, Olympics is the target, but mine is a little different. I am focusing on improving my timing; that's what I think about.

You know how much money I could have made playing professional football as a tight end? But I can't jump, and I can't run fast. That was my problem.

You play 162 days, and you play every day, or you try to play every day, and it's going to take a toll on your body. But that's what we're out here for. We're out here to play.