Great Sporting Quotes & Sayings

The World Cup is not just a great global sporting event, it is also inscribed with much deeper cultural and political importance. — Martin Jacques

There are three great international team sports in Australia: cricket, rugby (two codes), and Pom-bashing. But the greatest of these is the last, and it is time we prepared ourselves for the greatest celebration of Pom-bashing since Bodyline, the 1930s cricket tour that became an international incident. That one rankles to this day and is otherwise known as the longest whinge in sporting history. — Simon Barnes

After leaving school, I travelled around Europe for about six months. In Denmark, I thought that was my chance to get an amazing haircut, so I went to what I thought was a great hairdresser. It turned out to be the car wash of hairdressers, and I walked out sporting yet another pudding bowl, but this time with a stripe bleached down the centre. — Becki Newton

For the record, there were no framed pictures of me around our house, and the only class portrait Dad had ever ordered was the one from Sparta Elementary in which I'd sat, knees glued together, in front of a background that looked like Yosemite, sporting pink overalls and a lazy eye. "This is classic," Dad said. "That they shamelessly send me an order form so I can pay $69.95 for prints large and small of a photo in which my daughter looks as if she just suffered a great blow to her head - it just shows you, we are simply strapped to a motorized assembly line moving through this country. We're supposed to pay out, shut up or get tossed in the rejects bin. — Marisha Pessl

I'm really not quite as frippery a fellow as you seem to think! I own that in my grasstime I committed a great many follies and extravagances, but, believe me, I've long since out-grown them! I don't think they were any worse than what nine out of ten youngsters commit, but unfortunately I achieved, through certain circumstances, a notoriety which most young men escape. I was born with a natural aptitude for the sporting pursuits you regard with so much distrust, and I inherited, at far too early an age, a fortune which not only enabled me to indulge my tastes in the most expensive manner imaginable, but which made me an object of such interest that everything I did was noted, and talked of. That's heady stuff for greenhorns, you know! There was a time when I gave the gossips plenty to talk about. But do give me credit for having seen the error of my ways! — Georgette Heyer

There are compensations for growing older. One is the realization that to be sporting isn't at all necessary. It is a great relief to reach this stage of wisdom. — Cornelia Otis Skinner

This decision will only strengthen the bond between women players and one of the world's great sporting events [on equal prize money at Wimbledon — Maria Sharapova

We are very excited with the roster of skaters that are coming. It's the first time New Jersey has been awarded an event of this caliber in the skating world. It's definitely important to the area because we hear all the time that there are not enough major sporting events in South Jersey. It's a great opportunity to have such an event. — Susan Ward

One of the proudest things I see is, now, 25 years after I graduated, when I go to a Syracuse sporting event, there's a senior or a junior from WAER broadcasting sports just the way we did, and just the way it happened a couple generations before us. That's a great legacy for the university and a great tradition that still continues to this day, and makes those of us who were a small part of it very very proud. — Mike Tirico

To all the cynics, I'm sorry for you, ... I'm sorry you can't believe in miracles. This is a great sporting event and hard work wins it. — Lance Armstrong

A lot of people say there's a fine line between genius and insanity. I don't think there's a fine line, I actually think there's a yawning gulf. You see some poor bugger scuffling up the road with balloons tied to his ears, he's not going home to invent a rocket, is he? — Bill Bailey

Like more than one Englishman in New York, he looked upon Americans as hopeless children whom Providence had perversely provided with this great swollen fat fowl of a continent. Any way one chose to relieve them of their riches, short of violence, was sporting, if not morally justifiable, since they would only squander it in some tasteless and useless fashion, in any event. — Tom Wolfe

One of London's massive strengths is its sporting prowess, its great football teams. — George Osborne

The path is a ribbon of moonlight across a dusky sea.
The wind sings a song that beckons us
To that great and mighty tree.
We are the Greenowls of Ambala, clad in raiments of moss,
Sprigged with lichens and grasses
Then gilded with silvery frost.
Fair and square we play- for a sporting lot we are.
We ride the boisterous Balefire gusts
And we reach for every star. — Kathryn Lasky

I was raised on the struggle of elders - iron collars, severed feet, the rifle of dirty Harriet, and down through the years, the Muslims and regal Malcolm. But mostly what I saw around me was rank dishonor: cable and Atari plugged into every room, juvenile parenting, niggers sporting kicks with price tags that looked like mortgage bills. The Conscious among us knew the whole race was going down, that we'd freed ourselves from slavery and Jim Crow but not the great shackling of minds. The hoppers had no picture of the larger world. We thought all our battles were homegrown and personal, but, like an evil breeze at our back, we felt invisible hands at work, like someone else was still tugging at levers and pulling strings. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Perhaps it is the fate of all great sporting performances to be forgotten somewhat if the team eventually loses. Would we care overly about VVS Laxman's 281 or Ian Botham's 149 without the efforts of Harbhajan Singh and Bob Willis who turned these great feats from potentially heroic failures to match-winning epics? — Keith Stael

What's going on with your face, by the way?"
Gansey rubbed his chin, rueful. His skin felt reluctantly stubbled. He knew he was being diverted, but he allowed it. "Is it growing?"
"Dude, you aren't really going to do that beard thing, are you? I thought you were joking. You know that stopped being cool in the fourteen century or whenever it was that Paul Bunyan lived." Ronan looked over his shoulder at him. He was sporting the five o'clock shadow that he was capable of growing at any time of the day. "Just stop. You look mangy."
"It's irrelevant. It's not growing. I'm doomed to be a man-child."
"If you keep saying things like 'man-child,' we're done," Ronan said. "Hey, man. Don't let it get you down. Once your balls drop, that beard'll come in great. — Maggie Stiefvater

Fucking NASA. In a horror movie, when everyone is hugging their shins and shouting for the main character to turn and run, or crawl under the bed, or call the cops, or grab a gun, NASA would be the dude in the back shouting, Go see what made that noise! And take a flashlight! — Hugh Howey

I remember the first time I saw him play. It was for a Sporting CP youth team. I told my assistant, 'There goes Van Basten's son.' Ronaldo had great technique. He stood out. — Jose Mourinho

Ninety-nine per cent of traditional English literature concerns people who never have to worry about money at all. We always seem to be watching or reading about emotional crises among folk who live in a world of great fortune both in matters of luck and money; stories and fantasies about rock stars and film stars, sporting millionaires and models; jet-setting members of the aristocracy and international financiers. — James Kelman

Our great common challenge ... is to free people from religion, get it out of our laws, our schools, our health systems, our government and, I would add, also our sporting events. I would really like to see some separation of church and stadium, if we could work on that. — Barbara Ehrenreich

The world is filled with great sporting events. — Alex Berenson

Hunted for sport by the rich, then driven from large tracts of its natural habitat by agricultural and housing development, the giant panda deserves better than to be scrubbed from conservation's ledger books through false accounting. — John Burnside

Criminal law is one of the few professions where the client buys someone else's luck. The luck of most people is strictly non-transferrable. But a good criminal lawyer can sell all his luck to a client, and the more luck he sells the more he has to sell. — William S. Burroughs

It was not our war, but it would be our disgrace, our shame. The West was filling to declare a war over the price of oil, but when it came to the wholesale slaughter of human beings we folded our hands across our chests and tapped our heels, with great anticipation that Sunday's sporting events would be wonderfully entertaining — Bill Carter

Yes,' she said, her nod and smile so American and so misleading. 'You are not supposed to be here - you're supposed to be there. — Olivia Sudjic

I was no great achiever at school, either academically or in the sporting field ... I was always tending to be in trouble. — Peter Hollingworth

The more bad choices you make, the less bad your choices seem. — Karen Kingsbury

For wisdom: read your Bible repeatedly and apply its truths often. — Jim George

excellent relations between these two long-intermarried families of constitutional monarchs. In Jerusalem, under the authority of the Great Powers Condominium for the Holy Land, renewed clashes have occurred between Orthodox Jews and their Muslim counterparts at the Temple Mount. In India the governor general, Gurchuran Singh, is on holiday at a hill station but has met with representatives of India's sporting and business elite for a briefing on their preparations for hosting next year's Commonwealth Games. They will hold — Richard Ned Lebow

No sovereign, no court, no personal loyalty, no aristocracy, no church, no clergy, no army, no diplomatic service, no country gentlemen, no palaces, no castles, nor manors, nor old country-houses, nor parsonages, nor thatched cottages nor ivied ruins no cathedrals, nor abbeys, nor little Norman churches no great Universities nor public schools
no Oxford, nor Eton, nor Harrow no literature, no novels, no museums, no pictures, no political society, no sporting class
no Epsom nor Ascot Some such list as that might be drawn up of the absent things in American life. — Henry James

A cup that is already full cannot have more added to it. In order to receive the further good, we must give of that which we have. — Margaret Becker

A lot of the time, we're shooting summer campaigns in winter because they have to come out the next season. It's the hardest to feel great in a bikini when it's cold ... so I appreciate a swimsuit shoot that's in warm weather. — Gigi Hadid

I don't physically put Appetite For Destruction in and listen to it, but I hear it on the radio or at sporting events or wherever else it pops up, and it's great. I dig everything about it. When I hear Appetite, it sounds like exactly what it was. It sounds like a record made by an angry bunch of kids. — Slash

When I was in school, sport was given utmost importance. I think it's fantastic for character building, for team playing, and I think it's a great profile for a nation. One in every six people on Earth is an Indian, and I look forward to the day when we can compete with the heavyweights of the sporting world and do well in the medal tally. — Abhishek Bachchan

I look at directing as a sporting event. It's a race, a marathon. It's great when it clicks, which is why I push my crews so hard so we can excel. — Michael Bay

The language of God is not English or Latin; the language of God is cellular and molecular. — Timothy Leary

I don't care who wins because I go to sporting events to scream. It's the one place on the planet you can shout anything you want. You can bellow at will, and nobody will bother you. I yell things like, 'My life sucks! Dan Quayle is a schmuck! If I don't have sex soon, I'm going to explode!' Parents turn to their kids as I leave the stadium and go, 'Hey, there goes a great fan. — Lewis Black

You have to be clear what your message is and what you're doing. I mean, Miley Cyrus is an amazing talent, and sometimes you kind of just want to say, 'We know you're not Hannah Montana anymore. We know that, my dear. My darling. Now, go be great.' — Tori Amos

If you can be a good role model for people, well, great. You try and live your sporting life and the rest of your life as well as you can, and if it's something that people admire, well, fantastic. I don't sit at home and think about it too much, though - there's plenty of other things in my life going on. — Brian O'Driscoll