In terms of playing ability there is nothing to choose between number one and 100. Instead, it's a question of who believes and who wants it more? Which player is mentally stronger? Which player is going to fight the hardest in the big points? These are the things that determine who is the champion.
When I first played New York, it was with James Brown at the Apollo, and I was playing in a band under the name The Valentinos. I remember Sam Cooke saying, 'I want you to go in there with James Brown. I couldn't be as hard on you as James Brown would be.' But we came out marching like soldiers.
I just didn't want to get bored playing a character, and that's kind of the benefit of doing films; you've lived with a character for four or five months and that's it, and you walk away from that character and you feel like you told a story.
It's always a good situation to have the target be on you because that means you have been playing well.
On 'Grey's Anatomy' I wouldn't care what I was playing - I would play a corpse, 'cause I love it that much. It is deep true love, and it will never die.
Every player dreams of playing a Champions League semi-final, and we will give everything.
The decision to retire was quite an easy one for me because by that stage my knees were so badly gone. If I had been like Martina Navratilova and my body had let me I would have carried on playing a lot longer.
I was always very leery of my piano playing. As a young kid, I wanted to be a jazz musician, but my taste was far greater than my ability.
I just gravitate to those more testosterone-filled sort of parts than me playing something a bit more fairy-like.
Sophomore year, I got hit in the stomach playing football, and I was out of school for four months. I was in the hospital for two and then out of school for two.
Playing music is just one of the best things. I can't retire.
My dreams do not end with playing Major League Baseball.
There are certain things that I know I don't want to do anymore. Playing out-and-out terrorists who terrorise people and don't actually move the conversation on are not worth doing. So that's probably another reason I don't go back to America, because a lot of it is like that. It's boring, dull, very lazy writing.
Reorganization to me is shuffling boxes, moving boxes around. Transformation means that you're really fundamentally changing the way the organization thinks, the way it responds, the way it leads. It's a lot more than just playing with boxes.
I can't even imagine something being more fun than playing James Brown onstage.
It's about the music, not the color of the person playing the music.
I had an acting teacher tell me once that if you're playing a car salesman, you don't want to be an OK car salesman, you want to play the best car salesman.
Back in the days, we had to work with a shoestring budget. We had a movie screen, and we'd show movie trailers on them, and then we'd rip through it and started playing. Now we have a little money to play with to do a cool stage set.
I'm playing quarterback, I'm playing football, and I don't try to make it more than that.
I love playing serious! That's a relief for me. It means something. It sounds dead corny and cheesy, but on a day-to-day basis, you can't just let loose and cry. So as an actress playing those gritty roles, I can play it quite decently.
I grew up playing sports, football, basketball, baseball, everything, and acting was such a different environment and different world for me.
I definitely move to the beat of my own drummer and man, he's not playing something anyone has heard before. It's pretty cool, though. Pretty cool.
I did have a knack for playing weirdos. There's still sort of this perception of me out there as being this crazy guy.
It's been a long time since we've been out there playing new material, and we have really enjoyed that. Of course we still enjoy playing the Yes standards as well, but it's great to have a bit of a challenge and pull off new material.
When I was playing with Bob Dylan in, like, 1966, I was, like, 20 years old.
When I was nine years old, I started playing guitar, and I took classical guitar lessons and studied music theory. And played jazz for a while. And then when I was around fourteen years old, I discovered punk rock. And so I then tried to unlearn everything I had learned in classical music and jazz so I could play in punk rock bands.
Because in classical music cello is not regarded as a popular choice, it's always playing the long, boring notes.
What the British seem to like are television historians and naturalists, not public intellectuals. You can't help feeling that's because one supplies narrative and the other supplies facts, and the British are traditionally empiricists so they/we have a resistance to theory and to theoreticians playing too prominent a role in public life.
In high school, I decided I wanted to learn guitar, so I picked it up and starting teaching myself some basic chords and started playing with friends. Guitar inherently lends itself to be guitar music, especially when you're not good at guitar.
Before I became an actress, I was a cellist. I've been playing since I was 14, was in a lot of bands, and acting was more of a hobby.
I've got three little kids at home, and I'm trying to save this country from itself. I'm not here to play political power games, and I've had enough of people playing political power games, and this has just gone on too long.
When I retired in 1994, I was never tempted to drop down the divisions to carry on playing. In fact, I never kicked a ball again, not even in a charity match.
The advice I like to give to drummers is that there's no right or wrong way of playing the drums. I think the drumming community can be very antiquated and very stuck in the past of, like, this Neil Peart style, technical Guitar Center drum video kind of approach. That you need to have played for 15 years before you ever do anything worthwhile.
'Funny People' is my favorite performance of myself to date. Even though it's a comedy and there are serious moments, I really felt like Leo felt like a real person. It didn't feel like I was playing myself. Whether it's a comedy or drama, I just try to make it as realistic as possible.
This is my journey. If I fall, I have to pick myself up. If I'm not getting the playing time I want, it's up to me to figure out why.
If a player is playing IPL and earning money, it's not his fault that he's not playing for India. He is not quitting. He is playing first-class, one-day cricket and IPL. If selectors don't pick him, what can he do?
