Michael Ballack Quotes

I longed to be bright and most certainly never was. I was rather hopeless, I suspect.

We can spend our whole lives underachieving.

Bullying is bullying, man. Even the biggest of the bullies got bullied. And what was happening in school comes from the media, innit? It comes from TV and society.

For a lot of different reasons I didn't fulfil my potential.

When I went through my life, I was like, 'I sit around and play video games all day. Nobody wants to hear about this.'

I remember I came into the NBA in 1999; the game was a little bit more rough. The game now is more for kids. It's not really a man's game anymore.

When I was growing up, I wasn't particularly great at anything. I was in my own world, and my teachers felt I'd never reach my potential. Even in sports, I'd only play team games because I felt I was not good enough to outshine anyone.

Of course African teams are underachieving when you think of what their potential is.

I'm not worried by politics: I'm worried about the media.

It sounds strange, maybe, because I have played with a lot of big players but I never thought: 'OK, they're going to go into management.' Maybe there was only one, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, because he was always talking about football but I did not have a feeling with the other players.

Arsenal are a historic club. Arsene Wenger has been here for such a long time, and there is a real level of stability at the club. He knows what he wants to achieve in the coming years. I liked the way he spoke about football and what he thinks of me.

Back in 2001, my first start-up was mentioned in the 'New York Times' and 'USA Today.' I figured that would drive thousands of visitors to the site and tons of new business. Instead, only a handful of people visited our site, and not much business came of it at all.

The people may not be like that, but I think the media had a very dirty role in spoiling relations between us and India.

For me, I think Andre Drummond is going to be a superstar. We didn't have that. We had a lot of very good players. I think Drummond will be a superstar if he continues to work. The media, everyone is behind him.

I had basically been shelved by the record label for two years and I was writing songs every day. I made two albums that just never came out, and that was just a really big knock to my confidence, because everything I sent seemed like it just wasn't good enough.

I was usually asked to do less than I was capable of by directors who had lost control of their movie.

The media do strange things.

Many parts of the media have created the situation where uninteresting fashion can thrive.

Media has become a way that we think about our history. And the media moments are, for better or worse, how we contextualize our history.

When I lived in England my perception of what people thought of me was largely formed by the media.

At a moment when people are losing faith in their ability to participate in politics and make themselves heard, the media can play a critical role in reversing that sense of alienation.

The media are so key in a national emergency, especially when opposition parties in the U.K. are - let us say - largely in disarray, even leaderless.

When Robben joined Chelsea in 2004 nobody realised how good he was. He was seen as an excellent player rather than a world-class one, and he suffered a lot with injuries. In the years since, he has elevated his game.

People can say the media stuff drains you and everything, but you set everything up accordingly to the schedule.

I think the media has some responsibility to bear for people becoming more conservative.