Bill Walton Quotes

Basketball is one of those rare opportunities where you can make a difference, not only for yourself, but for other people as well.

Winning is about having the whole team on the same page.

Mick Jagger is in better shape than far too many NBA players.

It's up in the air whether the same can be said of Keith Richards.

Love is the single most powerful and important word and notion in culture and language. Until the power of love supersedes the love of power we have no chance of ever being successful.

But you have to understand, my beard is so nasty.

I mean, it's the only beard in the history of Western civilization that makes Bob Dylan's beard look good.

I believe in science and evolution. I've been to the Grand Canyon.

John Stockton is one of the true marvels, not just of basketball, or in America, but in the history of Western Civilization!

I had the only beard in the Western Hemisphere that made Bob Dylan's look good.

Growing up, my parents were very, very strict.

And then I went to UCLA with John Wooden, who was just off the charts.

The passions I have in my life are my family, music, books, I'm an avid plant collector, and I love to ride my bike.

The Grateful Dead, they're my best friends.

Their message of hope, peace, love, teamwork, creativity, imagination, celebration, the dance, the vision, the purpose, the passion all of the things I believe in makes me the luckiest Deadhead in the world.

The medical device tags that are being used [in the USA] are a terrible mistake.

Why are we taxing people for trying to save lives and trying to make lives better, make peoples lives healthier? Those taxes should be placed on alcohol, tobacco, junk food, guns. Those are all the things that destroy health.

I've had 36 orthopedic operations, have two fused ankles, my knees, hands and wrists don't work, I now have a fused spine, other than that, everything is great.

My life changed irrevocably four-and-a-half years ago when my spine failed and collapsed. I spent two years on the floor, in excruciating, debilitating and unrelenting pain. I can only describe the pain as being submerged into a vat of scalding acid that has an electric current running through it. And you can never get out, ever.

I love live music. I love going to the event. And to know them as people and to have seen the Grateful Dead grow up and become who they are is so incredibly special.

There are no guarantees in life. The simple twists of fate and the breaks of the game are the two maxims that define so much of the success and failure in life.

No matter how good you get, there's always something further out there.

Where else but the NBA could people like Bill Russell, Spencer Haywood, Ricky Barry, Dennis Rodman, and Allen Iverson come in and be allowed to be who they are?

Bill Russell was my favorite player of all-time.

I have nothing but respect for the Lakers.

So many of their legends shaped who I am as a person and player.

Well, we've made some changes on this tour.

We're no longer sleeping in the parking lots and swimming in the fountains. We've been staying in hotels most of the way, though I will say some hotels have declined to take us because we're just having too much fun.

Tracy McGrady is doing things we've never seen from anybody - from any planet!

Kevin Garnett is the prototype for the NBA player of the future.

He's already one of the greatest players to have played the game.

I have always wanted to be part of something special, and when I got to Boston.

. actually, when I bought, begged and pleaded my way onto the Celtics.. it was already a championship team. I was just glad to be able to sit there and cheer and to be Larry Bird's valet, to be sure that his shoes were fine and his uniform was folded neatly.

The offensive presence of Greg Ostertag is quite overwhelming sometimes!

I grew up in a classical music household.

My dad is a phenomenal musician who can play any and all instruments, can sight read, can play by ear.

No one missed more basketball in the history of NBA than I did.

I played 14 seasons, on the roster for 14 years, and I missed more than nine-and-a-half full seasons.

When you are in unrelenting, excruciating and debilitating pain that never goes away for years on end, your life is over.

I had this fantastic collection of Grateful Dead T-shirts and live concert music the band had give me over all these years, decades of material, and when our boys became teenagers they started going through everything and wearing the shirts and listening to the music and that's what the Grateful Dead is all about.

I learned a long time ago that minor surgery is when they do operation on someone else, not you.

It changes over the course of life, depending on how you're feeling.

There's this incredible catalog of different songs, so it depends on what you're hoping for, what your dream is and that song will come on.

Life is easy when you're hot. But what happens when the ball bounces the other way? You just keep getting back up and climbing up.

The only man who can stop Cliff Robinson is Cliff Robinson. The man is unstoppable even at 38.

When you find yourself talking about less and less and forgetting the love that you bring, never forget there are things you can replace but others you can not.

I've got my iPod and I've got it on shuffle.

If I'm not ready for one, I'll click to the next one. My wife, Lori, and our children, Adam, Nate, Chris, and Luke, will all tell you that when I find one I like it can stay on repeat for weeks on end.

Music is my life. It's inseparable from anything else that I do.

I started going [Grateful Dead] when I was in high school. I was 15. It was the Summer Of Love.

Chick Hearn was my favorite broadcaster ever - he's the one who taught me to think basketball, how to love basketball.

I like a lot of other music and listen to a lot of other music, but one of the greatest things about the Grateful Dead is they played all the time.

Never rank, rate, or compare coaches, children, concerts, or championships or congratulations. Just enjoy them all.

It's the most pleasurable experience in the world! When you're on a great team and you get hot, your teammates milk you dry - they wear you out and there's nothing like being on a great team.

Tim Duncan's foot issue, I think, is a major factor in this year's playoffs.

That's not the kind of injury that gets better over time playing NBA basketball.

I might be the most injured athlete in the history of sports.

I've had 31 operations. An endless string of stress fractures.

When I think of Boris Diaw, I think of Beethoven in the age of the romantics

That's what I tried to share in this book, Back From The Dead, the ability to learn, to dream, to hope. In a world that is far too often selling fear and death, I'm selling hope and life and success and that's why I chose to be part of the Grateful Dead.

Health is the most critical thing in our life.

With your health anything is possible, without it you can't do anything.

Being a broadcaster encompasses the business of sport, which is my life today, and it encompasses the skills of being a history student, and the ability of being a performer.

I'm a fan and a friend, I met them in 1974 when I first joined the NBA and my life has never been he same since. I became the basketball player I was because of the Grateful Dead.

I mean, I'm 6-foot-11, I've got red hair, freckles, I'm a goofy, nerdy-looking guy, I've got a speech impediment-I stutter and stammer all the time-and I'm a Deadhead.