2. “I don’t want to be the next Michael Jordan, I only want to be Kobe Bryant.”
3. “If you’re afraid to fail, then you’re probably going to fail.”
4. “Everything negative—pressure, challenges—is all an opportunity for me to rise.”
5. “I realized that intimidation didn’t really exist if you’re in the right frame of mind.”
6. “The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do.”
7. “I can’t relate to lazy people. We don’t speak the same language. I don’t understand you. I don’t want to understand you.”
8. “This is the moment I accept the most challenging times will always be behind me and in front of me.”
9. “Use your success, wealth, and influence to put them in the best position to realize their own dreams and find their true purpose.”
10. “The beauty in being blessed with talent is rising above doubters to create a beautiful moment.”
11. “Once you know what failure feels like, determination chases success.”
12. “The moment you give up is the moment you let someone else win.”
13. “I’m extremely willful to win, and I respond to challenges. It’s not a challenge to me to win the scoring title, because I know I can.”
14. “Pain doesn’t tell you when you ought to stop. Pain is the little voice in your head that tries to hold you back because it knows if you continue you will change.”
15. “If you don’t believe in yourself, no one will do it for you.”
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16. “We don’t quit, we don’t cower, we don’t run. We endure and conquer.”
17. “Losers visualize the penalties of failure. Winners visualize the rewards of success.”
18. “Haters are a good problem to have. Nobody hates the good ones. They hate the great ones.”
19. “Trust me, setting things up right from the beginning will avoid a ton of tears and heartache.”
20. “The important thing is that your teammates have to know you’re pulling for them and you really want them to be successful.”
21. “I’m reflective only in the sense that I learn to move forward. I reflect with a purpose.”
22. “When we are saying this cannot be accomplished, this cannot be done, then we are short-changing ourselves. My brain, it cannot process failure. It will not process failure. Because if I have to sit there and face myself and tell myself ‘you are a failure,’ I think that is almost worse than dying.”
23. “I create my own path. It was straight and narrow. I looked at it this way—you were either in my way or out of it.”
24. “The is a touchy one. A lot of leaders fail because they don’t have the bravery to touch that nerve or strike that chord. Throughout my years, I haven’t had that fear.”
25. “Sports is such a great teacher. I think of everything they’ve taught me—camaraderie, humility, how to resolve differences.”
26. “Winning takes precedence over all. There’s no gray area. No ‘almost.’”
27. “I’ll do whatever it takes to win games, whether it’s sitting on a bench waving a towel, handing a cup of water to a teammate, or hitting the game-winning shot.”
28. “I have self-doubt. I have insecurity. I have fear of failure. I have nights when I show up at the arena and I’m like, ‘My back hurts, my feet hurt, my knees hurt. I don’t have it. I just want to chill.’ We all have self-doubt. You don’t deny it, but you also don’t capitulate to it. You embrace it.”
29. “We can always kind of be average and do what’s normal. I’m not in this to do what’s normal.”
30. “It’s not about the number of hours you practice, it’s about the number of hours your mind is present during the practice.”
31. “Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.”
32. “I never needed any external forces to motivate me.”
33. “The biggest dreams aren’t fueled by belief. They’re fueled by doubt.”
34. “When you make a choice and say, ‘Come hell or high water, I am going to be this,’ then you should not be surprised when you are that. It should not be something that is intoxicating or out of character because you have seen this moment for so long that—when that moment comes, of course, it is here because it has been here the whole time because it has been in your mind the whole time.”
35. “It’s the one thing you can control. You are responsible for how people remember you—or don’t. So don’t take it lightly.”
36. “I’ve played with a broken hand, a sprained ankle, a torn shoulder, a fractured tooth, a severed lip, and a knee the size of a softball.”
37. “If you want to be great at something, there’s a choice you have to make. What I mean by that is, there are inherent sacrifices that come along with that. Family time, hanging out with friends, being a great friend, being a great son, nephew, whatever the case may be.”
38. “The most important thing is you must put everybody on notice that you’re here and you are for real.”
39. “Have a good time. Life is too short to get bogged down and be discouraged. You have to keep moving. You have to keep going. Put one foot in front of the other, smile, and just keep on rolling.”
40. “Be willing to sacrifice anything, but compromise nothing in your quest to be your best.”
41. “When I have the chance to guard Michael Jordan, I want to guard him. I want him. It’s the ultimate challenge.”
42. “I want to see if I can. I don’t know if I can. I want to find out. I want to see. I’m going to do what I always do; I’m going to break it down to its smallest form, smallest detail, and go after it. Day by day, one day at a time.”
43. “I remain focused on changing the world in positive ways through diverse stories, characters, and leadership in order to inspire the next generation.”
44. “Everything has a purpose. And that purpose has a story that goes along with it. It just depends on what your passion is.”
45. “May you always remember to enjoy the road, especially when it’s a hard one.”
46. “We psych ourselves up too much. Like if you try to talk yourself into, ‘Oh, this is a big moment, this is a big shot,’ you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself. You shot that shot hundreds and thousands of times. Just shoot another one.”
47. “Some people wanted me to come back down to earth. To come down to their level. To relax. But I couldn’t. It wasn’t in my DNA.”
48. “Because to go where others have never gone, you have to do what others have never done.”
49. “Everyone looks at your watch and it represents who you are, your values, and your personal style.”
50. “No matter what the injury—unless it’s completely debilitating—I’m going to be the same player I’ve always been.”
51. “From the beginning, I wanted to be the best. I had a constant craving, a yearning, to improve and be the best.”
52. “It’s an understanding that you can’t have life without death, can’t have light without the dark, right? So it’s an acceptance of that.”
53. “I see the beauty in getting up in the morning and being in pain because I know all the hard work that it took to get to this point. So, I’m not, I’m not sad about retiring. I’m very appreciative of what I’ve had.”
54. “These young guys are playing checkers. I’m out there playing chess.”
55. “A lot of people say they want to be great, but they’re not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness.”
56. “People just don’t understand how obsessed I am with winning.”
57. “You guys know how I am. I don’t forget anything.”
58. “Losing is losing. There aren’t different degrees of losing. You either win a championship or you’re sh*t. It’s very black and white to me.”
59. “There’s nothing truly to be afraid of, when you think about it, because I’ve failed before, and I woke up the next morning, and I’m okay.”
60. “I focus on one thing and one thing only—that’s trying to win as many championships as I can.”
61. “I want to learn how to become the best basketball player in the world. And if I’m going to learn that, I gotta learn from the best. Kids go to school to be doctors or lawyers, so forth and so on and that’s where they study. My place to study is from the best.”
62. “We all can be masters at our craft, but you have to make a choice. What I mean by that is, there are inherent sacrifices that come along with that. Family time, hanging out with friends, being a great friend, being a great son, , whatever the case may be. There are sacrifices that come along with making that decision.”
63. “I saw you come in and I wanted you to know that it doesn’t matter how hard you work, that I’m willing to work harder than you.”
64. “I love that kids are building confidence on and off the court and unlocking their potential through sport.”
65. “Friends can come and go, but banners hang forever.”
66. “You have to work hard in the dark to shine in the light.”
67. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. No matter what the injury—unless it’s completely debilitating—I’m going to be the same player I’ve always been. I’ll figure it out. I’ll make some tweaks, some changes, but I’m still coming.”
68. “There’s certain players that I’ve made cry. If I can make you cry by being sarcastic, then I really don’t want to play with you in the playoffs.”
69. “It doesn’t bother me at all. Do I hold any hard feelings? Not at all. Life is too short to sit around and hold grudges. I don’t hold any whatsoever.”
70. “Learn to love the hate. Embrace it. Enjoy it. You earned it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and everyone should have one about you.”
71. “People say bad things about you in the paper on Monday, and then on Wednesday, you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread. I’ve seen that cycle, so why would I be nervous about it happening?”
72. “Leadership is lonely. I’m not going to be afraid of confrontation to get us to where we need to go.”
73. “The odd thing is that I wound up learning more about the world around me by having a singular focus inside of me.”
74 “The beauty of coaching is growing the players from the ground up. That journey continues.”
75. “I don’t think a coach becomes the right coach until he wins a championship.”
76. “You want me to own a team and deal with these rich, spoiled, stubborn athletes, and try to get them to perform? No thank you.”
77. “It’s different from being 21 and you think there’s an endless amount of opportunities. At 33, the ending is much, much closer.”
78. “My role is to make sure we’re moving in the right direction, getting points, rebounds, steals, assists, and providing leadership.”
79. “I had to organize things. So I created the ‘Black Mamba.’ So Kobe has to deal with these issues, all the personal challenges. The Black Mamba steps on the court and does what he does. I’m destroying everybody that steps on the court.”
80. “I don’t just try to score. The challenge is elevating my teammates to be able to win a championship.”
81. “Either way, I refuse to change what I am. A lion has to eat. Run with me or run from me.”
82. “I’m not the most patient of people.”
83. “One thing you gotta know about me is I have absolutely no filter. I have no problem saying what the hell I think of someone.”
84. “I don’t want chumps, I don’t want pushovers, and if you’re a chump and a pushover, I will run over you.”
85. “It’s hard for me to grasp the concept of somebody being nervous when I’m talking to them.”
86. “Sometimes I do wonder what college would have been like. But I made my decision.”
87. “The examples are endless but my philosophy is simple. Once I knew my seed, I was able to discover my muse and my purpose for being was crystal clear.”
88. “I wanna be the best, simple, and plain.”
89. “Magic has five championships. I have five championships. I’m pretty sure we both know what we’re doing.”
90. “If there were camera phones back in the day, the biggest athletes in the world would have had a lot of explaining to do.”
91. “Only an idiot would doubt my return.”
92. “I’m playing against great players, playing against the best in the world. The competition—that’s what I’ve always wanted.”
93. “Hi, I’m Kobe Bryant. And I have decided to take my talent to, uh—I have decided to skip college and take my talent to the NBA.”
94. “There’s been a lot of talk of me being a one-man show but that’s simply not the case. We win games when I score 40 points and we’ve won when I score 10.“
95. “Eeew, I’d be a little uncomfortable Googling myself. People sit there – and Google themselves? That’s kind of weird.”
96. “Better learn not to talk to me. You shake the tree, a leopard’s gonna fall out.”
97. “If I wanted to play, I’d still be playing for the Lakers. The health thing I could’ve figured out—I just don’t want to play anymore.”
98. “There’s no need to get too crazy or bent out of shape. There are still challenges every day. But I’m still having fun. I was born to play this game. I still love it.”
99. “We all know what flopping is when we see it. The stuff that you see is where guys aren’t really getting hit at all and are just flailing around like a fish out of water.”