I can't stand satisfaction. To me, greatness comes from that quest for perfection.

If you could equate the amount of time and effort put in mentally and physically into succeeding on the baseball field and measured it by the dirt on your uniform, mine would have been black.

I don't think I can get into my deep inner thoughts about hitting. It's like talking about religion.

Any time you think you have the game conquered, the game will turn around and punch you right in the nose.

Philadelphia is the only city, where you can experience the thrill of victory and the agony of reading about it the next day.

If you're associated with the Philadelphia media or town, you look for negatives. I don't know if there's something about their upbringing or they have too many hoagies, or too much cream cheese.

Pete Rose is the most likable arrogant person I've ever met.

You're trying your damndest, you strike out and they boo you. I act like it doesn't bother me, like I don't hear anything the fans say, but the truth is I hear every word of it and it kills me.

I need to be out earning. I can make more in two hours at a card show than I did [as a minor-league manager] all year.

I could ask the Phillies to keep me on to add to my statistics, but my love for the game won't let me do that.

It isn't that hard to get RBI's when you're hitting home runs, you generally get a least one.

Life is not always perfect. Like a road, it has many bends, ups and down, but that’s its beauty.

My theory is that one needs to be loved completely, unconditionally, and unfettered by parental disapproval, if one is to get happily through life which, after all, presents its own hurdles.

Black college-educated people got to where they are on the backs of domestic help, meaning their parents and grandparents. So people should not forget how they got to where they are.

Your development as a person should coincide with your development in all aspects of your life.

We have more than enough resources in the world. The only thing we don't have is brains in Washington.

You don't like presents or anything new, you don't even need a card. You prefer your appreciations to be something of helpfulness, for someone else's regard.

Some people complain that they will not live forever, but cannot think of things to do on a wet Sunday afternoon.

You were born God's original. Try not to become someone's copy.

Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die

If we're going to live an ethical life, it's not enough just to follow the thou-shalt-nots. … If we have enough, we have to share some of that with people who have so little.