Grantland Quotes & Sayings

I learned much more from defeat than I ever learned from winning. — Grantland Rice

Because golf exposes the flaws of the human swing - a basically simple maneuver - it causes more self-torture than any game short of Russian roulette. — Grantland Rice

I await the hour when a journalist can be driven from the press room for venal practices, as a minister can be unfrocked, or a lawyer disbarred. — Grantland Rice

Golf is 20 percent mechanics and technique. The other 80 pecent is philosophy, humor, tragedy, romance, melodrama, companionship, camaraderie, cussedness and conversation. — Grantland Rice

Every father who ever lived has a dream for his son. — Grantland Rice

I am the servant of my score. — Grantland Rice

The flame of the inn is dim tonight,
Too many vacant chairs.
The sun has lost too much of its light,
Too many songs have taken flight,
Too many ghosts on the stairs.
Charon, here's to you as man against man,
I wish I could pick 'em the way you can! — Grantland Rice

There are three types of golf: golf, tournament golf and Major championship golf. — Grantland Rice

There's no dearth of kindness in this world of ours; Only in our blindness we gather thorns for flowers. — Grantland Rice

One might as well attempt to describe the smoothness of the wind as to paint a clear picture of his complete swing. — Grantland Rice

Christy Mathewson brought something to baseball no one else had ever given the game. He handed the game a certain touch of class, an indefinable lift in culture, brains, and personality. — Grantland Rice

There are many stars and a few super-stars in sport. There are champions who bag a coronet now and then, and there are others who dominate some game year after year. In other words there are Bobby Jones and Helen Wills. — Grantland Rice

Failure isn't bad if it doesn't attack the heart. Success is all right if it doesn't go to the head. — Grantland Rice

Golf gives you an insight into human nature, your own as well as your opponent's. — Grantland Rice

Depend upon yourself. Make your judgement trustworthy by trusting it. You can develop good judgement as you do the muscles of your body - by judicious, daily exercise. To be known as a man of sound judgement will be much in your favor. — Grantland Rice

You wonder how they do it and you look to see the knack You watch the foot in action, or the shoulder or the back, But when you spot the answer where the higher glamours lurk You'll find in moving higher up the laurel covered spire That most of it is practice and the rest of it is work. — Grantland Rice

Who is the best the sportswriter who wore shorts? I keep trying to envision Grantland Rice or John Lardner in shorts. It never occurred to me to wear shorts. I'd look too silly to wear shorts. — Dan Jenkins

It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. — Grantland Rice

you are meant to play the ball as it lies. — Grantland Rice

There is no type of miracle that can't happen at least once in golf. — Grantland Rice

Like life, golf can be humbling. However, little good comes from brooding about mistakes we've made. The next shot, in golf or in life, is the big one. — Grantland Rice

A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows the public opinion. — Grantland Rice

Grantland Rice, the great sportswriter once said, 'It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game.' Well Grantland Rice can go to hell as far as I'm concerned. — Gene Autry

Michael Bohn provides a rare opportunity to experience the American sporting scene in the Roaring Twenties. A constant stream of legendary characters marches across these pages. You'll meet them all: The Babe, The Four Horsemen, The Manassa Manassas Mauler, The Wheaton Iceman, Bill Tilden, Gertrude Ederle, and Grantland Rice, the sportswriter whose purple prose made them all come alive. — Peter Golenbock

This is the substance of our Plot-For those who play the Perfect Shot, There are ten thousand who do not. — Grantland Rice

For when the One Great Scorer comes
To mark against your name,
He writes - not that you won or lost -
But HOW you played the Game.
Alumnus Football — Grantland Rice

Fate only picks on the cowards and quitters,
So give 'em both barrels - and aim for the eyes. — Grantland Rice

Eighteen holes of match play will teach you more about your foe than 18 years of dealing with him across a desk. — Grantland Rice

All wars are planned by old men in council rooms apart. — Grantland Rice

When One Great Scorer comes to write against your name, He marks, not that you won or lost, but how you played the game. — Grantland Rice

It's not whether you won or lost, but how many bad-beat stories you were able to tell. — Grantland Rice