Push yourself again and again. Don’t give an inch until the final buzzer sounds.
Larry Bird
A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals.
Larry Bird
As far as playing, I didn’t care who guarded me – red, yellow, black. I just didn’t want a white guy guarding me, because it’s disrespect to my game.
Larry Bird
But it is a black man’s game, and it will be forever.
Larry Bird
Don’t let winning make you soft. Don’t let losing make you quit. Don’t let your teammates down in any situation.
Larry Bird
First master the fundamentals.
Larry Bird
I always know what’s happening on the court. I see a situation occur, and I respond.
Larry Bird
I don’t know if I practiced more than anybody, but I sure practiced enough. I still wonder if somebody – somewhere – was practicing more than me.
Larry Bird
I just shoot until I feel good.
Larry Bird
I knew I was as good as anybody. That’s not really bragging; it’s just that I’d put the time in.
Larry Bird
I like being by myself.
Larry Bird
I mean, the greatest athletes in the world are African-American.
Larry Bird
I really don’t like talking about money. All I can say is that the Good Lord must have wanted me to have it.
Larry Bird
I used to love the feeling of running, of running too far. It made my skin tingle.
Larry Bird
I wasn’t real quick, and I wasn’t real strong. Some guys will just take off and it’s like, whoa. So I beat them with my mind and my fundamentals.
Larry Bird
I’m a firm believer in that you play the way you practice.
Larry Bird
I’ve got a theory that if you give 100% all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end.
Larry Bird
If there was a payment to the bank due, and we needed shoes, she’d get the shoes, and then deal with them guys at the bank. I don’t mean she wouldn’t pay the bank, but the children always came first.
Larry Bird
In the closing seconds of every game, I want the ball in my hands for the last shot – not in anybody else’s, not in anybody else’s in the world.
Larry Bird
It doesn’t matter who scores the points, it’s who can get the ball to the scorer.
Larry Bird
It’s been a journey, the NBA. It’s taken me a lot farther than I ever expected.
Larry Bird
I’ve been around a while. I kinda know these things.
Larry Bird
I’ve got a theory that if you give 100% all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end.
Larry Bird
Leadership is diving for a loose ball, getting the crowd involved, getting other players involved. It’s being able to take it as well as dish it out. That’s the only way you’re going to get respect from the players.
Larry Bird
Leadership is getting players to believe in you. If you tell a teammate you’re ready to play as tough as you’re able to, you’d better go out there and do it. Players will see right through a phony. And they can tell when you’re not giving it all you’ve got.
Larry Bird
Once you are labeled ‘the best’ you want to stay up there, and you can’t do it by loafing around.
Larry Bird
Practice habits were crucial to my development in basketball. I didn’t play against the toughest competition in high school, but one reason I was able to do well in college was that I mastered the fundamentals. You’ve got to have them down before you can even think about playing.
Larry Bird
The best player I ever played with was Dennis Johnson.
Larry Bird
The best players will play. That’s the way it will always be.
Larry Bird
The one thing that always bothered me when I played in the NBA was I really got irritated when they put a white guy on me.
Larry Bird
What’s better? Dogs or broomsticks? I mean will the world really ever know?
Larry Bird
When I was a kid, I never thought about anything. Never had to think about where I was going to school or what I was going to do. I just lived minute to minute.
Larry Bird
When I was a kid, like 14 or 15, I played with the waiters from the hotel, ’cause that was the best game. And these guys, they’d let me play. And they were black guys.
Larry Bird
When I was young, I never wanted to leave the court until I got things exactly correct. My dream was to become a pro.
Larry Bird
When it gets down to it, basketball is basketball.
Larry Bird
While day by day the overzealous student stores up facts for future use, he who has learned to trust nature finds need for ever fewer external directions. He will discard formula after formula, until he reaches the conclusion: Let nature take its course.
Larry Bird
You never make any of the shots you never take. 87% of the ones you do take, you’ll miss too. I make 110% of my shots.
Larry Bird