Quotes about the game
page 7

“I once admitted—to my shame—
That football was a brutal game.
Because She hates it.”

Alfred Cochrane (1865–1948) English cricketer

To Anthea, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Nicholas Sparks photo
Anastacia photo
Andrew Bynum photo

“Close-out games are actually kind of easy. Teams tend to fold if you come out and play hard in the beginning, so we want to come out and establish an early lead and protect it.”

Andrew Bynum (1987) American basketball player

[McMenamin, Dave, Lakers want to end series Tuesday, May 9, 2012, ESPNLosAngeles.com, http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/story/_/id/7902623/2012-nba-playoffs-los-angeles-lakers-seek-early-close-series-denver-nuggets, http://www.webcitation.org/67cbXo08T, May 12, 2012]
Bynum in the 2012 NBA Playoffs saying the next game should be easy with the Lakers leading the series 3–1 against the Denver Nuggets and needing one more victory to advance to the next round. The Lakers eventually won 4–3.

John Green photo
Richard Rodríguez photo
Tom Robbins photo
Wilt Chamberlain photo
Georges Bernanos photo
John D. Carmack photo

“It's nice to have a game that sells a million copies.”

John D. Carmack (1970) American computer programmer, engineer, and businessman

Quoted in John Carmack Biography http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Carmack_John.html.

Michael Savage photo

“It's a shell game… They "give" you "free" health-care, then enslave you with a tax burden so heavy you go into cardiac arrest from the load.”

Michael Savage (1942) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, and Author

Source: The Enemy Within: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Churches, Schools, and Military (2004), p. 55

Evelyn Waugh photo
Michelle Branch photo

“The game of love is whatever you make it to be.”

Michelle Branch (1983) American singer-songwriter and guitarist

As quoted in "The Game of Love" (September 2002), by Santana, Shaman.
2000s

Julia Gillard photo
Babe Ruth photo

“Pitchers—real pitchers— know that their job isn't so much to keep opposing batsmen from hitting as it is to make them hit it at someone. The trouble with most kid pitchers is that they forget there are eight other men on the team to help them. They just blunder ahead, putting everything they have on every pitch and trying to carry the weight of the whole game on their shoulders. The result is that they tire out and go bad along in the middle of the game, and then the wise old heads have to hurry out and rescue them. I've seen a lot of young fellows come up, and they all had the same trouble. Take Lefty Grove over at Philadelphia, for instance. There isn't a pitcher in the league who has more speed or stuff than Lefty. He can do things with a baseball that make you dizzy. But when he first came into the league he seemed to think that he had to strike out every batter as he came up. The result was he'd go along great for five or six innings, and them blow. And he's just now learning to conserve his strength. In other words, he's learning that a little exercise of the noodle will save a lot of wear and tear on his arm.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

"Chapter III," Babe Ruth's Own Book of Baseball (1928), pp. 32-33; reprinted as "Babe Ruth's Own Story — Chapter III: Pitching the Keynote of Defense; The Pitcher's Job; Why Young Hurlers Fail," https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=r0sbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=J0sEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6011%2C3899916 in The Pittsburgh Press (December 23, 1928), p. 52

Michelle Obama photo

“As you might imagine, for Barack, running for president is nothing compared to that first game of basketball with my brother, Craig.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2000s, Democratic National Convention speech (2008)

“To the average mathematician who merely wants to know that his work is securely based, the most appealing choice is to avoid difficulties by means of Hilbert's program. Here one regards mathematics as a formal game and one is only concerned with the question of consistency.”

Paul Cohen (1934–2007) American mathematician

p. 11 of "Comments on the foundations of set theory." https://books.google.com/books?id=TVi2AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA11 In Axiomatic set theory, pp. 9-15. Providence (RI). American Mathematical Society, 1971.

Michael Jordan photo
MS Dhoni photo
Robert Aumann photo
Paul Cézanne photo
Ha-Joon Chang photo
Max Beerbohm photo

“The Socratic manner is not a game at which two can play.”

Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) English writer

Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. XV

Chuck Klosterman photo
Antoni Tàpies photo
Naomi Klein photo
Kate Bush photo

“They took the game right out of it.
When I am a man
I will be an astronaut,
And find Peter Pan.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Lionheart (1978)

Conor Oberst photo
Aldo Leopold photo
Martina Hingis photo

“Steffi has had some results in the past, but it's a faster, more athletic game now than when she played…. She is old now. Her time has passed.”

Martina Hingis (1980) Swiss tennis player

Long Road Back Graf Hopes For Smashing Return At The U.s. Open http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/sports/long-road-back-graf-hopes-smashing-return-u-s-open-article-1.818475

Stephen King photo
Allen West (politician) photo
John Updike photo
Oliver Stone photo
Dejan Stojanovic photo

“The game itself is bigger than the winning.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

“Game II,” p. 97
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “A Game”

Frida Kahlo photo
Peter Sloterdijk photo
Lee Child photo
Karl Denninger photo
Bob Seger photo
H.L. Mencken photo
Ernst Kaltenbrunner photo

“(While playing solitaire and sipping cognac) It's all a lot of crap. The game is up.”

Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903–1946) Austrian-born senior official of Nazi Germany executed for war crimes

To Adolf Eichmann, about the war, at a mountain villa in Austria. Quoted in "The Last 100 Days" - by John Toland - 1966

Viswanathan Anand photo
Lim Guan Eng photo

“We must have the can do spirit. For example, why must we lose to Singapore every time? Beat them at their own game, you can do it. Penang has beaten them many times.”

Lim Guan Eng (1960) Finance Minister of Malaysia

Lim Guan Eng (2018) cited in " Guan Eng: Let’s give Singapore some competition https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2018/06/19/guan-eng-lets-give-singapore-some-competition/" on The Star Online, 19 June 2018

“Most of the network related programming in games has to do with providing a good interactive experience when playing over the internet. This matter is very different from serving web pages. The primary concern there is to handle connection latency, latency fluctuations, packet loss and bandwidth limitations, and pretty much hide all of that from the player's experience.”

Timothee Besset French software programmer

Quoted in Brian Boyko, "ID Software Developer Timothee Besset on Network Performance in Games" http://www.networkperformancedaily.com/2007/01/id_software_developer_timothee.html Network Performance Daily (2007-01-29).

H. G. Wells photo
Arsène Wenger photo
Anthony Weiner photo
Gore Vidal photo
Gene Wolfe photo

“Yours is a race of pawns,” Tzadkiel told me. “You move forward only, unless we move you back to begin the game again. But not all the pieces on the board are pawns.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Source: Fiction, The Book of the New Sun (1980–1983), The Urth of the New Sun (1987), Chapter 24, "The Captain" (p. 176)

Chinmayananda Saraswati photo

“A Conquest, without facing dangers is as dull as Victory without a shining glory. A game without a prize!”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

Timothy Levitch photo
Matthew Prior photo

“Our hopes, like towering falcons, aim
At objects in an airy height;
The little pleasure of the game
Is from afar to view the flight.”

Matthew Prior (1664–1721) British diplomat, poet

To the Honorable Charles Montague (1692).

Yasunari Kawabata photo
Zinedine Zidane photo

“Sometimes I don't know what takes me over during a game. Sometimes I just feel I have moved to a different place and I can make the pass, score the goal or go past my marker at will.”

Zinedine Zidane (1972) French association football player and manager

Interview, June 2000 http://soccernet.espn.go.com/euro2000/news/20000702finalpreview.html.

Oksana Shachko photo

“Most games that we are approached with are too close to existing open source games for us to publish… we have no real desire to compete with open source products.”

Michael Simms (software developer) (1973) Video game programmer

Quoted in "Linux Game Publishing: An Interview With Michael Simms" http://web.archive.org/web/20050712080821/http://www.linuxgazette.com/node/10249 Linux Gazette (2005-06-03)

Johann Georg Hamann photo

“Let us assume that we invited an unknown person to a game of cards. If this person answered us, “I don’t play,” we would either interpret this to mean that he did not understand the game, or that he had an aversion to it which arose from economic, ethical, or other reasons. Let us imagine, however, that an honorable man, who was known to possess every possible skill in the game, and who was well versed in its rules and its forbidden tricks, but who could like a game and participate in it only when it was an innocent pastime, were invited into a company of clever swindlers, who were known as good players and to whom he was equal on both scores, to join them in a game. If he said, “I do not play,” we would have to join him in looking the people with whom he was talking straight in the face, and would be able to supplement his words as follows: “I don’t play, that is, with people such as you, who break the rules of the game, and rob it of its pleasure. If you offer to play a game, our mutual agreement, then, is that we recognize the capriciousness of chance as our master; and you call the science of your nimble fingers chance, and I must accept it as such, it I will, or run the risk of insulting you or choose the shame of imitating you.” … The opinion of Socrates can be summarized in these blunt words, when he said to the Sophists, the leaned men of his time, “I know nothing.””

Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788) German philosopher

Therefore these words were a thorn in their eyes and a scourge on their backs.
Socratic Memorabilia, J. Flaherty, trans. (Baltimore: 1967), pp. 165-167.

Clive Barker photo
Hope Solo photo

“It was the wrong decision, and I think anybody that knows anything about the game knows that. There's no doubt in my mind I would have made those saves.”

Hope Solo (1981) American association football player

As quoted in "U.S. Goalkeeper Faces Difficult Save" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/sports/soccer/25goalie.html?pagewanted=print, The New York Times (May 25, 2008).
2000s

Pierre Bourdieu photo
Mike Milbury photo

“It’s unbelievable that after more than 30 years in the game, pummeling a guy with his loafer will be my legacy. But I guess it's better than having no legacy at all.”

Mike Milbury (1952) American ice hockey player

[proicehockey.about.com/od/musicfilmcardstrivia/a/04_hockey_quote_2.htm, About.com, Fitzpatrick, Jamie, 2004 Hockey Quotes of the Year, 2006-12-20]
On himself

Fred Shero photo

“We're in a weird position. All year long people keep telling us that we're bad for hockey, bad for the NHL, bad for Canada because we're too rough. Now we're supposed to save the game for the NHL, for Canada, for everyone. Hah! For the first time we're the good guys.”

Fred Shero (1925–1990) Former ice hockey player and coach

Shero prior to the 1976 Flyers-Red Army game
This Was Détente, Philly Style, Sports Illustrated, Mulvoy, Mark, 1976-01-19, 2014-02-19 http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1090656/index.htm,

Marshall Faulk photo
Warren Zevon photo

“They made hypocrite judgments after the fact,
But the name of the game is be hit and hit back.”

Warren Zevon (1947–2003) American singer-songwriter

"Boom Boom Mancini"
Sentimental Hygiene (1987)

Jean Chrétien photo
Roberto Clemente photo

“Last year I lose almost 20 pounds. When I go home end season I weigh only 163. I worry more 'bout bad back than I worry 'bout baseball. Now I feel goot. Ver goot. I sink I play one fitty games and I hit thee hunnert. I feel I hab goot season. Maybe fiteen home runs, nyenee RBIs, steal maybe dirty bases.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "The Great Outdoors: Drafted for $4,000, Clemente Becomes Bucs' Top Bargain; Now That His Back Ailment Is Cured, Outfielder Hopes He'll Hit .300 Again" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xUEqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Dk4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=7140%2C2566447 by Les Biederman, in The Pittsburgh Press (Thursday, April 10, 1958), p. 28
Baseball-related, <big><big>1950s</big></big>, <big>1958</big>

Robert A. Heinlein photo
Hillary Clinton photo

“Mr. Trump may talk a big game on trade, but his approach is based on fear, not strength. Fear that we can’t compete with the rest of the world even when the rules are fair. Fear that our country has no choice but to hide behind walls.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in Warren, Michigan (August 11, 2016)

“It should be noted that this duration is considerably longer than we naively expect. If two players with 500 dollars each toss a coin until one is ruined, the average duration of the game is 250,000 trials. If a gambler has only one dollar and his adversary has 1000, the average duration is 1000 trials.”

William Feller (1906–1970) Croatian-American mathematician

Source: An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications (Third Edition), Chapter XIV, Random Walk And Ruin Problems, p. 349.

Jeremiah Denton photo
Camille Paglia photo
William Trufant Foster photo
Danie Craven photo

“A game of rugby is a work of art!”

Danie Craven (1910–1993) South African rugby union player and administrator

Sunday Times interview (1980s)

Mo Yan photo
Bud Selig photo
Thomas Flanagan (political scientist) photo
Robert Lynn Asprin photo

“Playing God was a sweetly addictive game.”

Robert Lynn Asprin (1946–2008) American science fiction and fantasy author

Source: Ripping Time (2000), Chapter 14 (p. 431)

Josh Billings photo

“As in a game ov cards, so in the game ov life, we must play what is dealt tew us, and the glory consists, not so mutch in winning, as in playing a poor hand well.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things https://archive.org/details/joshbillingsoni00billgoog (1868), Chapter XXIV: "Perkussion Caps", p. 89; republished in The Complete Works of Josh Billings http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36556 (1876), Chapter 141: "Ods and Ens", p. 248. Often paraphrased as "Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well."

“Secondly, the student is trained to accept historical mis-statements on the authority of the book. If education is a pre- paration for adult life, he learns first to accept without question, and later to make his own contribution to the creation of historical fallacies, and still later to perpetuate what he has learnt. In this way, ignorant authors are leading innocent students to hysterical conclusions. The process of the writers' mind provides excellent material for a manual on logical fallacies. Thirdly, the student is told nothing about the relationship between evidence and truth. The truth is what the book ordains and the teacher repeats. No source is cited. No proof is offered. No argument is presented. The authors play a dangerous game of winks and nods and faints and gestures with evidence. The art is taught well through precept and example. The student grows into a young man eager to deal in assumptions but inapt in handling inquiries. Those who become historians produce narratives patterned on the textbooks on which they were brought up. Fourthly, the student is compelled to face a galling situation in his later years when he comes to realize that what he had learnt at school and college was not the truth. Imagine a graduate of one of our best colleges at the start of his studies in history in a university in Europe. Every lecture he attends and every book he reads drive him mad with exasperation, anger and frustration. He makes several grim discoveries. Most of the "facts", interpretations and theories on which he had been fostered in Pakistan now turn out to have been a fata morgana, an extravaganza of fantasies and reveries, myths and visions, whims and utopias, chimeras and fantasies.”

Khursheed Kamal Aziz (1927–2009) historian

The Murder of History, critique of history textbooks used in Pakistan, 1993

Joe Namath photo

“I said, 'Whoa, wait a minute. You guys have been talking for two weeks now [meaning the Colts' fans and the media] and I'm tired of hearing it.' I said, 'I've got news for you. We're gonna win the game. I guarantee it.”

Joe Namath (1943) American football player

Quoted in "He guaranteed it" http://www.profootballhof.com/news/he-guaranteed-it1/, ProFootballHOF.com (January 1, 2005).

Louis Gerstner photo
Newton Lee photo
Paul Morphy photo