Thomas Jones Quotes

Many do with opportunities as children do at the seashore;

they fill their little hands with sand, and then let the grains fall through, one by one, till all are gone.

My inspiration is my hometown.

My inspiration is my hometown. I feel that because I'm representing my very overlooked region of Virginia, I have to keep accomplishing my goals to show everyone there that you can truly become whatever you believe with hard work and dedication.

I look at failure as the fertilizer to success.

Friends may come and go, but barbecues accumulate.

You're whatever you think you are. People like to compartmentalize other people. I don't worry about what other people think. I'm not living for them.

When you see a black guy on TV, he's always a thug or always portrayed as someone that's in trouble. It spreads the message to everyone else that that's who we are. People often don't try to understand black men as a whole. We're creative, strong and influential.

While I was in the NFL, I would eat five times a day.

I only eat twice a day now, and I box and play basketball every day. I'm extremely happy with my body and mind...

Football was everything to me. There was the physical aspect, sure. I did pushups and sit-ups every night, even as a kid. But I also just studied the game constantly. It was my life.

No one had ever made it big from my town until I was able to make it to the NFL and now the big screen. The journey from my town to where I am now has taught me how to be resilient and fearless, and for that I will forever be grateful.

Everybody dismissed athletes as being purely physical, but when you retire, you go from such an intense brain time - study of defense, audibles, hand signals, plays, adjustments - to a level of mental inactivity that's hard to comprehend. It's a big reason why I stay so active. Creating, evolving.

I feel like there's no such thing as failure.

When something doesn't go the way I want it to, I learn from it, and I accomplish more than I initially expected to.

I'm a gym rat, I have to admit. I live in the gym, and now that I don't have to get beat up for a living, I can truly enjoy taking care of myself without worrying about breaking my leg or getting paralyzed.

The common perception is it only happens to people who aren't paying attention.

There are a lot of black men doing really well, taking care of their families, taking care of their wives, being successful, doing the right thing, promoting the right thing. There needs to be an evolution in our portrayal. We have to come together, pool our resources and tell our own stories. People won't respect us unless we make them.

When I'm 75 years old, I want to say that I chased my dream.

I didn't let other people's opinions dictate what I have in my book of my life.

My father played in high school. My uncles played. From age five or six, I remember watching all the games. And I remember saying to my mom and dad even then that I was going to play in the NFL, and buy them a house and a car.

I took care of my body. Your body is your business in the NFL.

I had a great family. My father was in the Air Force, so we were always disciplined, goal oriented.

Acting has helped me detox in football. Getting lost in a character and a scene, it's awesome.

I feel like there's no such thing as failure.

As a football player, you're really an actor. I spent all Sunday getting into character. Sunday at 10 a.m., I have to be upset with someone who didn't do anything to me. By 11 a.m. I have to be angry. And by noon, I have to be furious.

The hardest thing I've had to overcome was being from my small coal-mining town of Big Stone Gap, Virginia. My mother was a coal miner for nineteen years, and the expectations of making it out of my town were slim to none.