1. “Don’t look back; something might be gaining on you.”
2. “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?”
3. “Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.”
4. “If a man can beat you, walk him.”
5. “Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching.”
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6. “Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”
7. “I never rush myself. See, they can’t start the game without me.”
8. “It’s funny what a few no-hitters do for a body.”
9. “Don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.”
10. “There never was a man on Earth who pitched as much as me. But the more I pitched, the stronger my arm would get.”
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11. “Ain’t no man can avoid being born average, but there ain’t no man got to be common.”
12. “Man’s got to do what he’s got to do.”
13. “Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way.”
14. “Never let the odds keep you from pursuing what you know in your heart you were meant to do.”
15. “There you is and there you is going to stay.”
16. “You win a few, you lose a few. Some get rained out. But you got to dress for all of them.”
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17. “Smile well and often—it makes people wonder what you’ve been up to.”
18. “If they treat you bad, you got to take care of your pride—no matter what.”
19. “Within the baselines, anything can happen. Tides can reverse; oceans can open.”
20. “I don’t generally like running. I believe in training by rising gently up and down from the bench.”
21. “Not to be cheered by praise, not to be grieved by blame, but to know thoroughly one’s own virtues or powers are the characteristics of an excellent man.”
22. “Airplanes may kill you, but they ain’t likely to hurt you.”
23. “Avoid running at all times.”
24. “If I’m lying, I’m dying.”
25. “With women, it’s like this—I’m not married, but I’m in great demand.”
26. “Never be unfaithful to a lover, except with your wife.”
27. “Avoid fried foods, which angry up the blood.”
28. “Don’t go to college, unless to get knowledge.”
29. “I don’t need any spit to help out.”
30. “When the green’s floating around, make sure you get your share.”
31. “Go very lightly on vices such as carrying on in society. The social ramble ain’t restful.”
32. “Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.”
33. “What’s scary in life is not what people know—or don’t know—but what they know that ain’t so.”
34. “If they make you go where learning is flying around, some of it is bound to light on you.”
35. “Never let the odds keep you from pursuing what you know in your heart you were meant to do.”
36. “Money and women. They’re two of the strongest things in the world. The things you do for a woman you wouldn’t do for anything else. Same with money.”
37. “Mother always told me, ‘If you tell a lie, always rehearse it. If it don’t sound good to you, it won’t sound good to no one else.’”
38. “With women, you don’t have to talk your head off. You just say a word and let them fill in from there.”
39. “I ain’t ever had a job, I just always played baseball.”
40. “My pitching philosophy is simple—keep the ball away from the bat.”
41. “I ain’t as fast as I used to be, but I’m a better pitcher. I used to overpower them; now I out-cute them.”
42. “When a batter swings and I see his knees move, I can tell just what his weaknesses are then I just put the ball where I know he can’t hit it.”
43. “Throw high risers at the chin and throw peas at the knees. Throw it here when they’re lookin’ there and throw it there when they’re lookin’ here.”
44. “When I was 10 and when I was 50, there was one thing I could do—play baseball. And you better believe it.”
45. “Just take the ball and throw it where you want to. Throw strikes. Home plate don’t move.”
46. “They said I was the greatest pitcher they ever saw—I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t give me no justice.”
47. “I sure get laughs when I see in the papers where some major league pitcher says he gets a sore arm because he’s overworked, and he pitches every four days. Man, that’d be a vacation for me.”
48. “You gotta keep the ball off the fat part of the bat.”
49. “I never threw an illegal pitch. The trouble is, once in a while, I toss one that ain’t never been seen by this generation.”
50. “Since I threw those rocks so straight, I guess it was just natural that I started firing a baseball.”
51. “The crowd was surprised when I struck out the side. I wasn’t, I did that lots of times. And I expect to do it more, too.”
52. “My feet ain’t got nothing to do with my nickname, but when folks get it in their heads that a feller’s got big feet, soon the feet start looking big.”
53. “I’ve said it once and I’ll say it a hundred times, I’m 44 years old.”
54. “The only change is that baseball has turned Paige from a second-class citizen to a second-class immortal.”
55. “Pitchers today have arm trouble because they sit on the bench and don’t work enough.”
56. “They want me to be old so I give ‘em what they want. Seems they get a bigger kick out of an old man throwing strikeouts.”
57. “I got a curve so sneaky it might be your daddy.”
58. “You ain’t seen no speed yet. Just wait until the weather warms up.”
59. “If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.”
60. “I can show you a man who says I’m over 60. Everybody’s got a different number. They play bingo with me.”
61. “I don’t know what you’re going to do Mr. Dean, but I’m not going to give up any runs if we have to stay here all night.”
62. “I know I can pitch—I been stopping major leaguers all my life.”
63. “It kind of hurts me when folks say I’m an old man.”
64. “I use my single windup, my double windup, my triple windup, my hesitation windup, my no windup. I also use my step-n-pitch-it, my submariner, my sidearmer, and my bat dodger.”
65. “Any big league starter who hits .200 shouldn’t be where he is. He ought to be waiting outside the gate to get in the park.”
66. “The reason I catch so many fish is because I feed them just what they like—grits, eggs, pork chops, and chitterlings.”
67. “Baseball is the most perfect of games, solid, true, pure, and precious as diamonds. If only life were so simple.”
68. “The Crawfords played everywhere, in every ballpark. And we won—won like we invented the game.”
69. “Nobody likes the ball low and away, but that’s where you’re going to get it from me.”
70. “But when I put the ball suit on, I don’t know where I got the spark to save my life.”
71. “I have been pitching it there 50 years, away from them. That way they can’t hurt you. You keep the ball in the park.”
72. “You always got to be thinking to make money. My invention wasn’t a smart-looking thing, but it upped my income.”
73. “One time I snuck a ball on with me and when I went to wind up, I threw one of them balls to first and one to second. I was so smooth I picked off both runners and fanned the batter without that ump or the other team even knowing it.”
74. “Bill Veeck asked me to throw at a cigarette as a plate and I threw four out of five over it.”
75. “You know, I pitched 163 games 2 years in a row, only 2 or 3 innings, but I pitched them games. I don’t believe anybody will ever do that again.”
76. “One time, Cool Papa Bell hit a line drive right past my ear. I turned around and saw the ball hit his ass sliding into second.”
77. “As far as me being first, I’d set black folks back 25 years. Imagine, I’m doing my job. I strike out one of them ‘pecks’ and he calls me a ‘nigga’ or something else out of my name. You know we got to fight. No way.”
78. “I don’t know how old I am because a goat ate the Bible that had my birth certificate in it. The goat lived to be 27.”
79. “Smokey Joe could throw harder than anyone.”