Quotes about the game
page 21

“Alex Ferguson is obviously one of the most successful coaches the game has ever had. But I did find his comments about Steven Gerrard very strange. To say he is not a top player is wrong. For two or three years, Steven Gerrard was the best midfield player in the world. Even now he is playing at a high level for Liverpool and England.”

Steven Gerrard (1980) English footballer

Zinedine Zidane on Steven Gerrard, (23rd of October 2013): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2477801/Zinedine-Zidane-rubbishes-Sir-Alex-Fergusons-Steven-Gerrard-criticism.html

World, Success

“In many real-world situations, cooperation may be easier to sustain in a long-term relationship than in a single encounter. Analyses of short-run games are, thus, often too restrictive. Robert Aumann was the first to conduct a full-fledged formal analysis of so-called infinitely repeated games. His research identified exactly what outcomes can be upheld over time in long-run relations.”

Robert Aumann (1930) Israeli-American mathematician

" Nobel Prize 2005 Press Release http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2005/press.html" 10 October 2005

World, Relation ships, Time

“What he’s done over the past five years has never, ever been done — and probably will never, ever happen again. Regardless if he won there or not, he goes down as the greatest ever. This just confirms it. Now that he has won in Paris, I think it just more solidifies his place in history as the greatest player that played the game, in my opinion. I’m a huge Laver fan, and he had a few years in there where he didn’t have an opportunity to win majors. But you can’t compare the eras. And in this era, the competition is much more fierce than Rod’s.”

Roger Federer (1981) Swiss tennis player

Pete Sampras, winner of 14 Grand Slams, after Federer winning 2009 French Open Final http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/news?slug=ap-frenchopen-sampras&prov=ap&type=lgns

History, Thinking, Past

“For me Roger is the greatest player ever who played the tennis game. It’s always good to see him play and win and we are going to see so much more of Federer in the future; he is going to win more grand slam tournaments.”

Roger Federer (1981) Swiss tennis player

Bjorn Borg, winner of 11 Grand Slams, after Federer won the 2009 French Open Final http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/news?slug=reu-wimbledonborg&prov=reuters&type=lgns

Future

“She started crying when she saw the busted colon I gave her pussy husband, so she took one of her shoes off and threw it at me. I caught the shoe between my pecs and I started to laugh like a pirate. Then she started walking towards me to take her shoe back, and there was no way I was going to let this bitch get near my chest so I body slammed her into a cactus that happened to be there. She got up and was uglier than before, so I did what I always do when women start to cry: I went back inside to play video games.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

Why change your car's oil when your girlfriend can do it? http://maddox.xmission.com/oil.html The Best Page in the Universe

Women, Shoe, Way, Bitch

“For myself, I would much prefer to be stuck with Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament, than stuck with George Bush in the White House. It is the difference between losing your wallet at a cock fight and losing all your credit cards forever, along with your job and your house and your ability to earn enough money to pay off your sports-gambling debts or even a six-pack on game day...”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

"What's Better Than the Tournament?' (18 March 2004)
2000s

Money, Sport, Fight, Housing

“Gold, he learned, was considered to be a reliable store of value because extracting it from the ground required a certain amount of effort that tended to remain stable over time. When new, easy-to-mine gold deposits were found, or new mining technologies developed, the value of gold tended to fall. It didn’t take a huge amount of acumen, then, to understand that the value of virtual gold in the game world could be made stable in a directly analogous way: namely, by forcing players to expend a certain amount of time and effort to extract a certain amount of virtual gold…”

Neal Stephenson book Reamde

Economics of gold farming, Thanksgiving (prologue)
Reamde (2011), Part I: Nine Dragons

World, Way, Understanding, Effort

“Can you support the expense of a husband, hussy, in gaming, drinking and whoring? Have you money enough to carry on the daily quarrels of man and wife about who shall squander most? There are not many husbands and wives, who can bear the charges of plaguing one another in a handsome way.”

John Gay (1685–1732) English poet and playwright

Mrs. Peachum, Act I, sc. viii
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Money, Way, Drink, Support

“Life was never a May-game for men: in all times the lot of the dumb millions born to toil was defaced with manifold sufferings, injustices, heavy burdens, avoidable and unavoidable; not play at all, but hard work that made the sinews sore, and the heart sore.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

Life, Men, Suffering, Time

“With a zero sum game, it almost always ends up being a question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. Both people involved will perceive the other to have started it.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

People, Question

“I wasn’t really shocked or anything. Because of what I saw after the incident after the NFC championship game. You’ve got a lot of racial backlash, and a lot of racist comments that were uncalled for – I can never see a time where racism is called for. So it didn’t shock me as much as it would have had I not experienced that personally, had I not seen those things. Because it showed me that America still had some progress to make. On equality, and understanding that it doesn’t matter what color you are, you treat people as people. And whether a good person or a bad person, you don’t judge them off the color of their skin. You can know a person is a good person or a bad person by who they are, not by what they look like. In that situation, it just seems like a lot of people gave him a lot of flack, well deserved, but you know – I feel like a lot more people were surprised then they should have been.”

Richard Sherman (American football) (1988) American football player

About Donald Sterling's racist remarks.
The NFL Would Not Have Banned A Donald Sterling For Life (May 7, 2014)

Bad luck, People, Making love, Color

“I said: "Baseball is the hurrah game of the republic!"”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

He was hilarious: "That's beautiful: the hurrah game! well — it's our game: that's the chief fact in connection with it: America's game: has the snap, go fling, of the American atmosphere — belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly, as our constitutions, laws: is just as important in the sum total of our historic life."
Conversation with Whitman (4 July 1889) as quoted in With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906) by Horace Traubel, Vol. IV

“The zipless fuck is absolutely pure. It is free of ulterior motives. There is no power game. The man is not "taking" and the woman is not "giving."”

Erica Jong book Fear of Flying

No one is attempting to cuckold a husband or humiliate a wife. No one is trying to prove anything or get anything out of anyone. The zipless fuck is the purest thing there is. And it is rarer than the unicorn. And I have never had one.
Fear of Flying (1973)

Motivation

“Throughout the social sciences today, the dominant form of modeling is based upon the rational-choice paradigm. Game theory, in particular, is typically based upon the assumption of rational choice. In my view, the reason for the dominance of the rational-choice approach is not that scholars think it is realistic. Nor is game theory used solely because it offers good advice to a decision maker, because its unrealistic assumptions undermine much of its value as a basis for advice.”

Robert Axelrod book The Complexity of Cooperation

Introduction
The Complexity of Cooperation (1997)

Thinking, Decision, Science

“Once data are ruled out as arbiters among theories, those theories become pointless, just another clever intellectual game.”

Massimo Pigliucci (1964) chair of the Department of Philosophy at CUNY-Lehman College

On The Problem of Consciousness, Panpsychism & More https://letter.wiki/conversation/277 February 11, 2020

“Seventy-two thousand of the flock stand prepared to break the Sabbath this coming Sunday. Break it? Nay, destroy, shatter utterly with screams of pleasure as they observe a large vulgar person, himself a confessed glutton, propel a sphere an unholy distance. Old Nick rides on Ruth's bat, else how could he smite the ball so far beyond the power of ordinary man? He is in league. Forbid the games. Cast this Ruth out into utter darkness. He creates joy annually for millions.”

Paul Gallico (1897–1976) American writer and journalist

"Stop the Series" http://www.mediafire.com/view/qp5h3rqswtjqui2/.jpeg (tongue-in-cheek, Prohibition-era tirade, regarding upcoming 1927 World Series), New York Daily News (October 5, 1927)

Pleasure, Joy, Personality

“When I made the switch to a plant based diet, people, they were like, "I don't know how you're gonna lift that much weight." And, "You're not gonna be eating anything, you're just gonna eat grass. Like, how you gonna be strong?" I qualified for my third Olympic team, you know what I'm saying? I broke two American records. I won at the Pan-Am games. I was like, "Man." Like, "I think, I should've done this a long while ago."”

Kendrick Farris (1986) American weightlifter

Like, "Why didn't I research this before?"
Interview in the documentary-film The Game Changers by Louie Psihoyos (2018).

People, Thinking, Strong, Grass

“To understand the crisis we need to get beyond the blame game. For at the root of the crisis was not failures of character or competence, but a failure of ideas.”

Robert Skidelsky (1939) Economist and author

Source: John Maynard Keynes: The Return of the Master (2009), Ch. 1 : What Went Wrong?

Idea, Failure, Understanding

“That’s the worst we’ve played in the kicking game in a year and a half.”

Bill Belichick (1952) American football coach

Postgame press conference following 29-26 overtime win over San Diego Chargers October 14, 2001, describing two missed kicks and a fumbled punt.

“My experience in the NBA was a catastrophe, because I’m a born winner. I don’t like losing, even in card games.”

Darko Miličić (1985) Serbian basketball player

As quoted in "Miserable at every NBA stop, Darko Milicic has found peace as a farmer" http://sports.yahoo.com/news/miserable-at-every-nba-stop-darko-milicic-has-found-peace-as-a-farmer-131359198.html (14 March 2017), by Ben Rohrbach, Yahoo! Sports 2010s

“If the streambed of education is being enlarged, one formidable force altering its contours is competition. Learning is where you find it: on "Sesame Street," in inner games of tennis and the Zen of everything, in teaching and learning cooperatives, in computers, on FM radio, in self-help books, in magazines... and television documentaries.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Nine, Flying and Seeing: New Ways to Learn

Books, Education, Learning, Help

“I grew up in Kentucky so that's the land of casseroles and barbecue and meat. So when I transitioned over to an entirely plant-based diet, I wasn't sure if I was gonna survive. And I actually became like a machine. […] I just immediately started feeling like I could go kick ass and not need the recovery in between. It was mind-blowing to my teammates. […] I was about ready to retire, as I should've been, because I'm like 35 at that time. But I just kept getting better, and so they had to take me to the Olympics. We were complete underdogs as Team USA. In our semi-final ride against Australia, we were down by 1.7 seconds. No one's ever come back in team pursuit from a deficit that large. And we beat them on the line by eight one-hundredths of a second. I was 39 and a half years old when I stood on the Olympic podium. I'm still the oldest person, male or female, to even go to the Olympic Games in my event. My diet was the most powerful aspect to me being able to perform and produce for the US team at the Olympic Games.”

Dotsie Bausch (1973) cyclist

Interview in the documentary-film The Game Changers by Louie Psihoyos (2018).

Feeling, Time, Personality

“In the NFL, the injury rate is a 100 percent. It's a violent game. And so, how you respond to injury and how quickly you heal from injury is important because if you're not on the field, you're not helping the team. I was reading the research and seeing that a plant-based diet could be beneficial, specifically for recovery. And so I started incorporating it and I started seeing really good results with it. I was recovering better. I wasn't getting as sore. I was a lot less swollen. Basically, to confirm what I was feeling, I got my blood tested. Six months after being on the diet, all of my markers were down, my blood pressure, my cholesterol. But the main thing I was looking at was the inflammation marker in your blood and mine was... almost obsolete. It wasn't there anymore.”

Derrick Morgan (American football) (1989) Player of American football

Interview in the documentary-film The Game Changers by Louie Psihoyos (2018).

Feeling, Reading, Help

“I don't believe in flying saucers... The energy requirements of interstellar travel are so great that it is inconceivable to me that any creatures piloting their ships across the vast depths of space would do so only in order to play games with us over a period of decades.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

"On Flying Saucers" in Is Anyone There? (1967), pp. 215–216
General sources

Travel, Relation ships, Flying

“Any time I'm not playing, I watch the game at home on television. That way I can relax and if I decide to make a catch off my playroom wall, nobody is the wiser.”

Willie Mays (1931) Baseball player

Regarding his decision not to attend Game 1 of the 1960 World Series, despite having been in Pittsburgh the previous day for a TV appearance; as quoted in "Change of Pace" by Bill Nunn, Jr., in The Pittsburgh Courier (October 15, 1960), p. 25

Making love, Way, Home, Time

“In politics there is no morality anyway. The nature of the game precludes it. A politician's career depends upon the fickle wind of public opinion. He is forced to trim his conscience to catch every shift of the breeze.”

Morris West (1916–1999) Australian writer

Gil Langton in Ch. 3, p. 38
The Ringmaster (1991)

Nature, Dependency

“When I was starting in the game industry, it wasn't uncommon to be the only woman on the entire team...I always felt welcome and I never felt awkward. In my years at Nintendo, I have come to discover that when there are women in a variety of roles on the project, you get a wider [range] of ideas.”

Aya Kyogoku (1981) Video game director

March 19, 2014 Animal Crossing: New Leaf director says team diversity, communication core to its success https://www.polygon.com/2014/3/19/5526678/animal-crossing-new-leaf-diversity-aya-kyogoku

Women, Idea

“Even if my place of work or the nature of my titles change, what I show won’t change and I don’t want it to. I’m a game fan at heart; I tell dirty jokes and make irresponsible comments (laughs), but I’ll work my hardest to make games.”

Kenichiro Takaki (1976) Japanese video game producer

"Kenichiro Takaki opens up about why he left Marvelous and more" https://nintendoeverything.com/kenichiro-takaki-opens-up-about-why-he-left-marvelous-and-more/, NintendoEverything.com (27 March 2019).

Making love, Nature, Change, Heart

“When I was a kid I wanted to become a manga creator, but over time I realized video games are special due to how the player has direct control of the action. So, that became very appealing.”

Kenichiro Takaki (1976) Japanese video game producer

"Interview: Senran Kagura Producer Kenichiro Takaki Talks Sexuality, Violence in Games, and Peach Beach Splash" https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2017/07/13/senran-kagura-interview-peach-beach-splash-kenichiro-takaki/, PlayStationLifeStyle.net (13 July 2017).

Time

“The instruction booklet for Stargate, a contemporary symbolic game relating to consciousness, opens: The turning about is upon us, the turning of mind, the expansion of eyes... the light that shapes from within.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Eleven, Spiritual Adventure: Connection to the Source

Light, Relation ships

“What a fool I was. I was only a puppet, and so was Ulster, and so was Ireland, in the political game that was to get the Conservative Party into power.”

Edward Carson, Baron Carson (1854–1935) Irish politician, barrister and judge

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1921/dec/14/address-in-reply-to-his-majestys-most#column_44 in the House of Lords (14 December 1921)

Fools

“No amount of happiness enjoyed by some organisms can notionally justify the indescribable horrors of Auschwitz. [...] Nor can the fun and games outweigh the sporadic frightfulness of pain and despair that occurs every second of every day. For there's nothing inherently wrong with non-sentience or [...] non-existence; whereas there is something frightfully and self-intimatingly wrong with suffering.”

David Pearce (philosopher) (1959) British transhumanist

2.7 Why Be Negative? https://www.hedweb.com/hedethic/hedon2.htm#negative*Negative-utilitarianism is only one particular denomination of a broad church to which the reader may well in any case not subscribe. Fortunately, the program can be defended on grounds that utilitarians of all stripes can agree on. So a defence will be mounted against critics of the theory and application of a utilitarian ethic in general. For in practice the most potent and effective means of curing unpleasantness is to ensure that a defining aspect of future states of mind is their permeation with the molecular chemistry of ecstasy: both genetically precoded and pharmacologically fine-tuned. Orthodox utilitarians will doubtless find the cornucopian abundance of bliss this strategy delivers is itself an extra source of moral value. Future generations of native ecstatics are unlikely to disagree. 2.7 Why Be Negative? https://www.hedweb.com/hedethic/hedon2.htm#negative The Hedonistic Imperative https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/514875 (1995)

Pain, Happiness, Suffering, Self-confidence

“Well, I think my skills are in getting things started. ... In fact, that's what I enjoy most — it's the opening game. And I'm afraid that once it gets past that point I get rather bored with it and want to do other things. ... The other thing I'm good at is talking.”

Sydney Brenner (1927–2019) South African biologist, Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine 2002

[226. My strength and weaknesses, Sydney Brenner, Web of Stories, https://www.webofstories.com/play/sydney.brenner/226]

Thinking, Past

“Cars are free to circulate but still there are speed limits, therefore I do not see why, at the international level, we should not study ways to limit monetary movements. Bankers cannot act at will. ... Why should we not draw up some rules of the game?”

Jacques Delors (1925) French economist and politician

Speech to the European Parliament (17 September 1993), quoted in The Times (18 September 1993), p. 23
President of the European Commission

Cars, Way, Study, Drawing

“The other, more nebulous, but very strong influence of RPGs was the weird fetish for systematization, the way everything is reduced to “game stats.””

China Miéville (1972) English writer

If you take something like Cthulhu in Lovecraft, for example, it is completely incomprehensible and beyond all human categorization. But in the game Call of Cthulhu, you see Cthulhu’s “strength,” “dexterity,” and so on, carefully expressed numerically. There’s something superheroically banalifying about that approach to the fantastic. On one level it misses the point entirely, but I must admit it appeals to me in its application of some weirdly misplaced rigor onto the fantastic: it’s a kind of exaggeratedly precise approach to secondary world creation. Interview with Joan Gordon http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/interviews/mievilleinterview.htm

Way, Strong

“[R]andom spinning being assumed, the distribution of chance in the game depends upon the mechanical perfection of the teetotum; it must be equally likely to fall on all its thirty-seven sides, i.e. the frequency of all the numbers must in the long run be very nearly the same.”

Karl Pearson (1857–1936) English mathematician and biometrician

"The Scientific Aspect of Monte Carlo Roulette" (1894)

Chance, Dependency, Perfection

“Unlike novels or movies, video games are an interactive medium where the player's actions drive the story forward, so I had actually wanted to allow players to manipulate the evidence themeselves earlier on in the series.”

Shu Takumi (1971) video game developer

“Man is endowed with choice, but the world as he has made it is a perfect example of what not to do. Man's basic needs are food, shelter, clothing, and procreation. The stock market, cosmetics, religious games, war games, the myth of teaching, and political games are the lack of these.”

Warren Leopold (1920–1998)

[Westlund, Darren, Cambria Treasures, Warren Leopold, Cambira, CA, Small Town Surrealist Productions, 1990, 39, ASIN: B000E263NM, 2019-03-17, https://www.amazon.com/Cambria-Treasures-Interviews-Noteworthy-Cambrians/dp/B000E263NM]

War, World, Food, Perfection

“The view has been gaining widespread acceptance that corporate officials and labor leaders have a "social responsibility"... beyond serving the interests of their stockholders or their members. This view shows a fundamental misconception of the character of a free economy. In such an economy there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception fraud. Similarly, the "social responsibility" of labor leaders is to serve the interests of the members of their unions. It is the responsibility of the rest of us to establish a framework of law such that an individual... is, to quote Adam Smith... "led by an invisible hand... I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good."”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Source: Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Ch. 8 Monopoly and the Social Responsibility of Business and Labor, p. 133

Law, Quotes, Business, Fraud

“You aspired to be God’s advocate, you got the job, you performed admirably. But God’s advocate was ipso facto my advocate. Theodicy’s a sucker’s game, Professor. When Yahweh was operational, humanity’s obligation wasn’t to worship Him, for chrissakes. It was to celebrate His creativity and stand forevermore opposed to His malice. And anybody such as yourself, anybody who sought to shoehorn an omnibenevolent God into the same universe as Auschwitz...that person, Dr. Gregory Francis Lovett—that person did the Devil’s work for him.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: Blameless in Abaddon (1996), Chapter 15 (p. 391; spoken by the Devil)

God, Universe, Personality

“The pretty game of calling on the children of the audience of "Peter Pan" to declare their faith in fairies seemed to me disastrous—a game of men and women at the expense of children, a cumbersome frolic at best and an artificial, a tyrannous use of the adult sense of sentimental humour against the helpless. I could with better conscience use my superior physical strength upon them than exploit them for love of my own condescension. (And yet Sir J. Barrie has written the most adorable "pretending" story ever written about a child.)No, children love a fairy story not because they think it true, but because they think it untrue, and because it makes no fraudulent appeal to their excellent good sense. That sense they are delighted to put aside while they "pretend." That is their own word.[…] "Let's pretend," not "Let's believe."”

Alice Meynell (1847–1922) English publisher, editor, writer, poet, activist

Their mother does not put "Let's pretend" into the child's mouth; she finds it there. Without it there is no play. But the pretending is always drama and never deception or self-deception.
"V. Fairies", pp. 32–33
Childhood (1913)

Love, Women, Men, Children

“Where one Jacob Fugger, Cosimo de Medici, de la Pole or Gresham strove for success we have now literally thousands of keen, clever men as fearless, as progressive and as determined as they. Money not only for the few but for the many is the prize which is sought, and for this prize is the race now perhaps swifter, the battle keener, the game bigger than has been any race, battle, or game since the world began; and commerce in its broader sense is the medium through which this prize is won.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge (1858–1947) America born English businessman

The Romance of Commerce (1918), A Representative Business of the Twentieth Century

Men, Money, World, Sense

“I've been through a lot. But I think it all happened for a reason. I think what I went through made me appreciate the game even more. Even life, really. I wasn't guaranteed to be here.”

Frank Gore (1983) American football running back

Reflecting on life and his NFL career:

Life, Thinking

“Love the game. Love the game. Perfect your craft, every day. Look at all the guys who everyone says, ‘He’s the best one.’ And be better than they are.”

Frank Gore (1983) American football running back

On Advice on Football, Life
“When I came in the league, I was thinking about the best guys. Not the best guys on my team—the best guys in the league. I was thinking about LT [LaDainian Tomlinson], Marshall Faulk, Portis, Larry Johnson … Thinking about how I wanted my name mentioned with them. What can I do to make that happen?"
“This was important to me … My first year [2005], late in the season, we beat the Rams. I had a long run in the fourth quarter to win the game. Marshall came up to me after the game. He said, ‘Keep working hard. You’ll be a special player in the league.’ Man, that was big. Marshall Faulk!"
“I started calling those guys. I wanted to know stuff from them. LT, Faulk, Edge [Edgerrin James]. Now it’s come around. What I am happy about now, young guys at my position—Derrick Henry, after we play the Titans, he comes up to me and says, ‘Damn, I want to train with you, man.’ Even coordinators. They say, You still got it."
“When I was young, I remember [former Niners fullback and coach] Tom Rathman said to me, ‘The only thing you should worry about is your peers’ respect.’ He’s right. If your peers respect you, you’re doing it right."
“No matter what your job is in your life, don’t listen to anyone who says you can’t do something. I can tell you: You can do it.”

Love, Making love, Guy, Perfection

“My first year, my rookie year at the 49ers, I had two labrum tears. Both shoulders. I had a chance to get the surgery before the season or play ball, and I told my coaches that I wanted to play and then get the surgeries. The reason was, when I came out [of college], everybody said I was injury-prone, and I just wanted to show them how tough I was and how much I love the game. That’s what that year was about. I got the surgeries after that first year in San Francisco. Both shoulders.”

Frank Gore (1983) American football running back

On Injuries
“After the surgeries, I respected Ronnie Brown, I respected Benson, I respected Cadillac. But I told people, ‘Once I get healthy I WILL NEVER be outrushed by any of those guys. No one in my draft class will ever outrush me again. That second year I proved that.
“How I did that … I don’t know. It’s not me. It’s God. God got me here. God and hard work. Respecting the game. Love, man. Love. Love the game. Love my teammates. Every time I get ready to strap up, show the world today that no one is better.”

Love, Making love, Tear, Chance

“I know what I signed up for. I do not regret anything I’ve done. I never, never wish I did not play this game.”

Frank Gore (1983) American football running back

On Early Years
"My neighborhood, Coconut Grove, we always played in the streets. It was corner against corner. We all had football teams. Different neighborhoods. My first year playing Pop Warner football, my mom had to change my birth certificate because I was too young. I was 5, I think, and you were supposed to be 6. My first time playing running back in a real game, I had eight touchdowns. I always loved football. For so long, I played against the older kids in the neighborhood. They had me really competing. I’d play corner, receiver, running back. I remember one time one of the older kids looked at me when I was playing corner, like it was a threat, and said: ‘You better not get beat.’"
"When I got to Coral Gables High, it felt like I was on a different level. You play Pop Warner, and you’re good, and all the top high schools try to get you. So I felt like I was pretty good. I got over 1,000 yards my sophomore year, but my coach got fired. At that time I wasn’t really working hard. I was good, but I didn’t lift weights. This new coach, Joe Montoya, basically called me out in our first team meeting. He didn’t give a s--- what I done to that point. He said, ‘I don’t care what you did before I got here.’ He told the guys things were gonna be different, and they better work hard, or they could get out right now. I felt like he called me out. I was about to leave. But then I met with him. He said, ‘Listen to what I say, and you’ll be a D-1 player.’"
"Good lesson. I listened to him. I got stronger and stronger, and I got faster. I was the first one at practice. I had to be first in every sprint. He had me programmed. I got better. My senior year, I rushed for 1,000 yards in my first four games. I wanted to play major-college football. Joe Montoya was really important. When I go back to Miami now, I call him. We have cookouts."

“What's happening in the world and in the ocean has changed our time horizon. We can be incredibly pessimistic on the short term, and mourn what we lost and what we really took for granted. But we can still be optimistic on the long term, and we can still be ambitious about what we fight for and what we expect from our governments, from our planet. Corals have been living on planet Earth for hundreds of millions of years. They survived the extinction of the dinosaurs. They're badasses. An individual coral can go through tremendous trauma and fully recover if it's given a chance and it's given protection. Corals have always been playing the long game, and now so are we.”

Kristen Marhaver American marine biologist

Source: Why I still have hope for coral reefs https://www.ted.com/talks/kristen_marhaver_why_i_still_have_hope_for_coral_reefs (April 2017)

World, Change, Chance, Time

“I do not know how long I can continue my game with this team. But I can assure you that when I realize that my skills and willpower are decreasing, then I will drop myself.”

Mashrafe Mortaza (1983) Bangladeshi international cricketer and politician

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&u=https%3A%2F%2Fbani.com.bd%2F402%2F1996%2F

“What do we mean by “understanding” something? We can imagine that this complicated array of moving things which constitutes “the world” is something like a great chess game being played by the gods, and we are observers of the game. We do not know what the rules of the game are; all we are allowed to do is to watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules. The rules of the game are what we mean by fundamental physics.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

Even if we knew every rule, however, we might not be able to understand why a particular move is made in the game, merely because it is too complicated and our minds are limited. If you play chess you must know that it is easy to learn all the rules, and yet it is often very hard to select the best move or to understand why a player moves as he does. So it is in nature, only much more so.
volume I; lecture 2, "Basic Physics"; section 2-1, "Introduction"; p. 2-1
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)

God, World, Imagination, Understanding

“one thing the gamer world is certainly agreeing of, is that halo infinite is sure to be the highest numbered halo game yet”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/1287072890408460293] Tweets by year, 2020

World

“[Nature] only keeps us alive by a complicated system of the most shameful illusions, falsifying beyond rectification life, death, and after-death. Having made us take part in this poor puzzling game of life, she has taken care that all the rules shall be unfavourable to us: the cards are marked, the dice are loaded, we are always swindled. Thus years of hard work; and self-denial are frequently lost by a slip or chance, but seldom or never saved by a chance. Our health may be ruined by a pin-prick, but never doubled by an accident. We fall seriously ill in a moment, and take weeks or months to recover; lose a limb by some sudden mishap, but never by a good hap regain it. We cannot reach even a low degree of wisdom or knowledge without long hard study, while to be ignorant and foolish is the easiest and most natural thing in the world for us. Our sorrows are real and enduring; our joys deceptive and transient; our prizes of victory are not to be compared with our forfeits of defeat.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

"The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery", part II, p. 62
Essays and Phantasies (1881)

Life, Death, Wisdom, Health

“Never stay to think about how to win the game, start playing.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Non restare mai a pensare a come vincere la partita, inizia a giocare.
Source: prevale.net

Thinking

“The game of basketball is one of the greatest teachers of life there is. It teaches you first and foremost to believe in yourself. You must develop physical and mental toughness in order to succeed because there's going to be many disappointments and setbacks along the way. You learn quickly that basketball is a team game. You must be unselfish and accept the role that helps the team the most. Basketball teaches you the importance of setting high standards and never accepting anything other than your best effort.”

Tom Crean (basketball coach) (1966) American college basketball coach

Foreword to Winning Basketball : Techniques and Drills for Playing Better Offensive Basketball (2004) by Ralph L. Pim

Life, Disappointment, Way, Effort

“You can't win, you can't break even, and you can't get out of the fucking game.”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

Interview with Gary K. Wolfe (28 July 1987), quoted in Harlan Ellison : The Edge of Forever (2002), by Ellen Weil and Gary K. Wolfe
Borrowing a common scientific joke expressing the laws of thermodynamics.

“If you're a man and you've ever been antique shopping during a big football game, you're either gay or married.”

Jeff Foxworthy (1958) American stand-up comedian

Have Your Loved Ones Spayed and Neutered (2004)

Football

“It's one thing to think someone's stupid. And fair enough if you need them to be. But you can't go banking on it. That's a mug's game.”

Tim Winton (1960) Australian writer

Part III, Ch.5 - p.250
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)

Stupidity, Thinking

“We've all grown up with the idea that gunning a man down is just fun and games. All of us, as kids, played cops and robbers, with toy pistols or pointing a finger at somebody and saying, "Bang, Bang. You're dead!"”

Sam Peckinpah (1925–1984) American film director and screenwriter

Both the movies and television have perpetuated the idea that shooting a man is clean and quick and simple, and when he falls down there is only a small hole, or a blood-stain, to show how he died. Well, killing a man isn't clean and quick and simple. It's bloody and awful. And maybe if enough people come to realize that shooting somebody isn't just fun and games maybe we'll get somewhere about violence on the screen in the first place. [...] No, I don't like violence. In fact, when I look at the film myself, I find it unbearable. I don't think I'll be able to see it again for five years. Responding, circa July 1969, to the question, "Why did you make this film?", posed by a film critic for Reader's Digest; as quoted in "Looking Sideways: Photographic Violence Won't Stop Violence" https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=78219633 by Whitney Bolton, Fort-Myers News-Press (July 23, 1969), p. 4

Idea, Dead

“I can't imagine a person becoming a success who doesn't give this game of life everything hes got.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

Source: Free the Airwaves! (2002)

Life, Imagination, Success, Personality

“I got offended on behalf of my imaginary kids. [...] My children are not gonna be playing out on grass. They will be up in their rooms playing violent video games and catfishing pedophiles.”

John Mulaney (1982) American actor and comedian

The Comeback Kid (2015)

Children, Grass

“You make interstellar politics sound a very dirty game.”

Isaac Asimov book The Currents of Space

“It is, but disapproving of dirt doesn’t remove it.”
Source: Empire novels (1950–1952), The Currents of Space (1952), Chapter 14 “The Renegade” (p. 141)

“There is always a good time to start a business, considering you have the Internet in your pocket, you are in this game 24/7/365, which is the ultimate secret weapon.”

Vladimer Botsvadze

Secret, Business, Time

“Execution is the game. If you don't execute your ideas, nobody notices your contribution.”

Vladimer Botsvadze

Idea

“Don't demand so much from yourself early in the game. I was 27 years old before I started tweeting actively.”

Vladimer Botsvadze

“The pain is huge, but not bigger than love to her”

Marek Matoušek

“It’s perhaps unsurprising that many though not all people would decide that faced with an opponent whose entire position is the total denial of your humanity as the kind of human being that you are, the only winning move in such a game would be not to play.”

Abigail Thorn (1993) British actress and YouTuber

Transphobia: An Analysis | Philosophy Tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCxqdhZkxCo, 12.08.2018 Philosophy Tube

People

“The Catholic Church in Greece must play the game of the European Union, pushing for a secular, free, independent and modern state.”

Yannis Spiteris (1947) Roman Catholic archbishop

Why the Greek Orthodox Oppose Papal Visit https://zenit.org/2001/04/30/why-the-greek-orthodox-oppose-papal-visit/ (April 30, 2001)

“We all have skin in the game, it is imperative that all of us stand up for each other, because prejudice against one group will bleed into prejudice against other groups.”

Gemma Chan (1982) British actress

"Gemma Chan dealt with a decade of discrimination before she found blockbuster success: Meet GLAMOUR’s March digital cover star” " in Glamour (20 March 2019) https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/gemma-chan-captain-marvel-feminism-interview-march-2019

“We feel that users have more expectations. Concerning antitrust, privacy protections, the prevention of big data price discrimination, and so on, we, as users, share these concerns. For instance, with our gaming business, we know there are a lot of doubts.”

Ma Huateng (1971) Chinese internet entrepreneur

"Tencent founder Pony Ma emphasises company’s investment in social value amid increasing antitrust and gaming scrutiny" in South China Morning Post (23 April 2021) https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3130836/pony-ma-emphasises-tencents-investment-social-value-amid-increasing

Feeling, Business

“The Olympian doesn't mind the pain in training, but his eyes are still on the prize; which is the gold medal at the end of the game.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Pain, Training

“Wars make a man more masculine. Hence, it is the oldest game of men that has been played in every generation.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Men, War

“If every day you play the board game Risk
You've probably never taken a risk
In your life / And Monopoly has far
From a stranglehold on the board game market
A little kid died from suffocation
When he choked on a game piece from Operation”

Bo Burnham (1990) American comedian, musician, and actor

IRONIC
Words Words Words (2010)

Life

“I stuck my dick in this game like a rapist. They call me 'Slim Roethlisberger!'”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Almost Famous"
2010s, Recovery (2010)

“Money is a game. It's only real to the people who work for it. It's a monopoly game. It's a game of paper. It's all on paper.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

Interview https://youtube.com/watch?v=CNPW0WHIAvo?t=872 by Penny Daniels (1989)

Money, People

“Patience's design flaw became obvious for the first time in my life: the outcome is decided not during the course of play but when the cards are shuffled, before the game even begins. How pointless is that?”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish", p. 368
Cloud Atlas (2004), The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish (Part 2)

Life, Time, Patience

“What is "poker?" A card game where abler liars take money off less able liars.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"An Orison of Sonmi~451", p. 209
Cloud Atlas (2004), An Orison of Sonmi~451 (Part 1)

Money

“Football is a game played with arms, legs and shoulders but mostly from the neck up.”

Knute Rockne (1888–1931) American college football player and college football coach (1888-1931)

Great Quotes from Great Sports Heroes (1997) by Peggy Anderson, p. 35

Football

“The time has come for us to move away from the corner and come to the centre which is where the game plan begins and where everything happens.”

Thokozani Khuphe (1963) Deputy Prime Minister of Zimbabwe

Source: Zimbabwe: Gender Equality A Right (2010)

Time

“We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there”

James Franklin Jeffrey (1946) American diplomat

Source: 12 November 2020 interview with Defense One https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-envoy-admits-hiding-us-troop-numbers-praises-trumps-mideast-record/170012/ affirmed 13 November 2020 by Washington Examiner https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/pentagon-shake-up-to-help-cement-trumps-legacy-bringing-troops-home-and-taking-out-enemies-white-house-source-says

“Hypocrisy is a game of pretense. It's a lack of honesty. Clearly, Jesus did not abide hypocrites. He expects honesty. He expects straightforwardness, and he expects us to be humble about it all.”

Patrick Pinder (1953) Roman Catholic archbishop of Nassau, the Bahamas

Source: Safety, protection and well-being https://thenassauguardian.com/safety-protection-and-well-being/ (October 15, 2020)

“I made a very historic decision. Every month, we will give cash to our athletes for their lifetime if they get medals in the Olympic games.”

Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj (1963) Mongolian politician

Source: "Mongolian President Talks Corruption And Human Rights" in The Harvard Crimson https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/9/24/mongolian-president-institute-politics/ (24 September 2012)

Decision

“Squid Game is a story about human nature that most people can already relate to, yet everything is communicated through easy-to-follow childhood games.”

HoYeon Jung (1994) South Korean model, actress

Source: "Exclusive: How Squid Game’s Hoyeon Jung Went from Model to Star of Netflix’s Biggest Hit" in Vogue https://www.vogue.com/article/squid-game-star-hoyeon-jung-interview (7 October 2021)

People, Communication, Nature, Childhood

“Regardless of the difficulties or frustrations you meet, you should think about your initial intention, and then you feel peaceful. For me, I enjoy the game and so I’m doing what I like.”

Peng Shuai (1986) Chinese female tennis player (1986-)

Source: "Peng Shuai: Eyes Ahead" in China Today http://www.chinatoday.com.cn/english/society/2014-11/07/content_650652_2.htm (7 November 2014)

Peace, Feeling, Thinking

“From the beginning year I was doing lot of fitness and also, like, I keep practice, try to improve my game. Maybe this time I find a way or I catch, like, right time.”

Peng Shuai (1986) Chinese female tennis player (1986-)

Source: "Playing All the Angles, Peng Shuai Keeps Her US Open Dream Alive" in ESPN https://www.espn.com/espnw/news-commentary/story/_/id/11454748/playing-all-angles-peng-shuai-keeps-us-open-dream-alive (2 September 2014)

Way, Time

“I don't think it's reasonable to make someone pay for a game and then make them prepare a network connection and charge a monthly fee”

Satoru Iwata (1959–2015) Japanese video game programmer and businessman

Source: Reuters interview https://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/8683/iwata-discusses-online-plans

Thinking

“Story of my life. I wasted nearly a decade before I realized that life is not a game and there are no save points or second chances.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Labyrinth Index (2018), Chapter 1, “God Save the King” (p. 40)

Life, Chance

“The wonderful part of acting of acting is you don't know what your playmate is going to be offering as that obstacle, and that's the surprising part, that's the magical part, so it's like a game of tennis, you don't know what's going to be thrown at you, you've got to be on you toes.”

Joy Tanner (1966) American actress

Source: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joy_Tanner

Parting

“The long game for Christians in the public square is a big loss if more people don't get out there and proclaim the Gospel message.”

Brian T. Carroll (1949) American educator and politician

Source: He won’t win. So why is Brian Carroll running for president? https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/43755/he-wont-win-so-why-is-brian-carroll-running-for-president (4 March 2020)

People, Loss

“As a maid (in maid café), you have to be in your best behavior and always have the best customer service game on while smiling for the entire day and interacting with patrons.”

Angel Chooi Malaysian teacher, model, online streamer and cosplayer

Source: Angel Chooi cited in " The rise of maid cafés in Malaysia and why it’s actually kinda cool https://eksentrika.com/maid-cafe-malaysia-king-angel/" on Eksentrika.

Smile, Behavior

“I believe that China will successfully hold a simple, safe and wonderful Winter Olympic Games.”

Zoran Tegeltija (1961) Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Source: Zoran Tegeltija (2021) cited in: " BiH official wishes Beijing Winter Olympics full success http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/20211231/df0ec6b8d3774e88b2b4ae3838e72d5a/c.html" in Xinhuanet, 31 December 2021.

Winter

“How much grit do you think you've got?
Can you quit a thing that you like a lot?
You may talk of pluck; it's an easy word,
And where'er you go it is often heard;
But can you tell to a jot or guess
Just how much courage you now possess?You may stand to trouble and keep your grin,
But have you tackled self-discipline?
Have you ever issued commands to you
To quit the things that you like to do,
And then, when tempted and sorely swayed,
Those rigid orders have you obeyed?Don't boast of your grit till you've tried it out,
Nor prate to men of your courage stout,
For it's easy enough to retain a grin
In the face of a fight there's a chance to win,
But the sort of grit that is good to own
Is the stuff you need when you're all alone.How much grit do you think you've got?
Can you turn from joys that you like a lot?
Have you ever tested yourself to know
How far with yourself your will can go?
If you want to know if you have grit,
Just pick out a joy that you like, and quit.It's bully sport and it's open fight;
It will keep you busy both day and night;
For the toughest kind of a game you'll find
Is to make your body obey your mind.
And you never will know what is meant by grit
Unless there's something you've tried to quit.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: Just Folks (1917), On Quitting

Men, Courage, Business, Thinking

“The days that followed were a game I enjoyed playing. Fake indecision is delicious when people want you to do something.”

Roger Zelazny (1937–1995) American speculative fiction writer

This Mortal Mountain (p. 135)
Short fiction, The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth, and Other Stories (1971)

People, Indecision

“Love her like she isn't already yours.”

John Mark Green

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/Ca99y88r5ze/

“The thing that's so interesting about being alive is that you're all in. No matter what you do you're all in; this is gonna kill you. So I think you might as well play the most magnificent game you can while you're waiting—because, do you have anything better to do, really?”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

"2017 Maps of Meaning 12: Final: The Divinity of the Individual" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V1eMvGGcXQ&t=0s Lectures

Thinking, Waiting

“Are you getting bored doing interviews? That's work. It's the most responsible, representative and solemn work there is — like sport. Anyone who does not aim for the Olympic Games or championships should not be in the sports industry.”

Vladimir Zhirinovsky (1946–2022) Russian politician and political activist

"Zhirinovsky: 'Europe, you shall tremble!'" in DW News https://www.dw.com/en/zhirinovsky-europe-you-shall-tremble/a-42923191 (11 March 2018)

Sport

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Game pad game pad, | game game pad pad, | game pad game pad, | game game pad pad, | Tarquini e Prevale si sfidano a colpi di joypad, | colpi di joypad, | colpi di joypad, | colpi di joypad, | colpi di joypad, | Gamepad la consolle virtuale. (from Game Pad – Tarquini & Prevale vs. Vodka) Source: Tarquini & Prevale vs. Vodka – Game Pad https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Vodka-Tarquini-Prevale/Game-Pad-Tarquini-Prevale-vs-Vodka-Extended, Musixmatch.com, October 26, 2017

“Where we find a difficulty we may always expect that a discovery awaits us. Where there is cover we hope for game.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Reflections on the Psalms

Reflections on the Psalms (1958), ch. III: Cursings

Hope

“In games there are rules, but in life the rules keep changing.”

Kim Stanley Robinson (1952) American science fiction writer

Source: Red Mars (1992), Chapter 6, “Guns Under the Table” (p. 431)

Life, Change

“It is absolutely clear to everyone that the reasons for such a disastrous war as we have endured for seven years now have nothing to do with the demand for democracy or freedom. They have much more to do with a dirty game of world economics.”

Joseph Tobji (1971) archeparch of Maronite Catholic Archeparchy of Aleppo

“If it weren‘t for the Church, we‘d be dead by now” https://acninternational.org/werent-church-wed-dead-now/ (6 February 2018)

War, World, Democracy, Freedom

“We can forget that prayer is not about doing something, but rather about being with Someone. Prayer is an encounter. Mother Teresa would tell her novices that when they entered the chapel, they should say to Jesus: “Here I am, Lord. Love me.” Prayer is not rattling off words, nor a simple psychological activity, nor punching the clock, nor magic, nor ritual words and postures. It is not a monologue where we speak at God, but a dialogue where we converse with Him who is closer to us than we are to ourselves. Prayer is about falling head-over-heels in love with the God who is head-over-heels in love with us.”

Unknown author

“Women executives have a different sensitivity. Male executives only understood makeup or fashion as an instrument of seduction, because that was addressed to them. They didn’t understand that we like to put on makeup or dress up just because it’s a game; it’s pleasurable.”

Isabella Rossellini (1952) Italian actress and filmmaker

On being asked to be the face of Lancôme after being fired by a male executive decades earlier in “Isabella Rossellini: ‘Ageing brings a lot of happiness. You get fatter – but there is freedom’” https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/oct/13/isabella-rossellini-ageing-brings-a-lot-of-happiness-you-get-fatter-but-there-is-freedom in The Guardian (2020 Oct 13)

Women, Pleasure, Fashion, Understanding

Quotes about the game page 21

Quotes about the game
page 21