“Know this. I think you could be special if you only thought there was anything special about yourself.”

“I do not have any other way of saying it. I think it happens but once and only to the very young when it feels like your skin could ignite at the mere touch of another person. You get to love like that but once.”

“The only way I could endure being a coward was if I was the only one who knew it.”

“I was the only person in the world who thought it was a military duty to appear to be in a good mood.”

“In family matters you can get over anything. That's one thing you'll learn as an adult. There's a lot you have to learn which is a lot worse than that. You'd never think of forgiving a friend for some of the things your parents did to you. But with friends it's different. Friends aren't the roll of the dice.”

“In sport the mind serves as the acolyte and apprentice of the body. Nothing interferes with the flow of the game more than the athlete who obsesses about his every move on the court. You move, you react, you recover, you drive, and the thinking is seamless and invisible in the secret codes of your game.”

“I was trying to unravel the complicated trigonometry of the radical thought that silence could make up the greatest lie ever told.”