“I went through baseball as 'a player to be named later.'”

“One thing you learned as a Cubs fan: when you bought you ticket, you could bank on seeing the bottom of the ninth.”

“Baseball is drama with an endless run and an ever-changing cast.”

“He's one of those Christmas Eve guys. There are people like that. . . every day in their lives is Christmas Eve.”

“They had killed themselves over our dying forests, over manatees maimed by propellers as they surfaced to drink from garden hoses; they had killed themselves at the sight of used tires stacked high...”

“The world seemed to shimmer a little at the edges.”

“If we cannot accept the importance of the world, which considers itself important, if in the midst of that world our laughter finds no echo, we have but one choice: to take the world as a whole and...”

“Sports are sports. Its all about how we carry ourselves out of the ring.”

“Ring out the false, ring in the true.”

“In the ring, I never really knew fear.”

“In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.”

“There are two theories on hitting the knuckleball. Unfortunately, neither of them works.”

“I'm fortunate to be famous for two rather imposing characters like Magneto and Gandalf.”