Kobe Bryant Quotes

“By eloquence I understand those appeals to our moral perceptions that produce emotion as soon as they are uttered. This is the very enthusiasm that is the parent of poetry. Let the same man go to his closet and clothe in numbers conceptions full of the same fire and spirit, and they will be poetry.”

“The Kobe 8 is about enhanced performance. It's the most comfortable shoe I have worn. It's simplistic but has an edge to it.”

“Everybody wants to talk about NBA players being selfish and arrogant and individuals. But what you saw today was a team bonding and facing adversity and coming out with a big win.”

“What people see on court is another side of me; it's not me.”

“I don't set out to make a really hot shoe, I set out to make a product that is true to where I am.”

“People look at my competitive spirit, and they automatically attach it to the thing that's most similar, most easily recognizable, which is Michael [Jordan's] competitive spirit. I'm different. I enjoy building. I enjoy the process of putting the puzzle together, and then the byproduct of that, the consequence of that, is beating somebody. That becomes the cherry on top, the icing on the cake.”

“I'm just right down the middle, man, ... It doesn't matter to me. I'd love him (Phil Jackson) as a coach. It doesn't matter to me. If they want him here, he'll be here. If he wants to come, he'll come, he'll coach and we'll go from there.”

“You're my backbone. You're a blessing. You're a piece of my heart. You're the air I breathe. And you're the strongest person I know, and I'm so sorry for having to put you through this and having to put our family through this.”

“Just got one more than Shaq. You can take that to the bank.”

“At the end of 2003, my game was complete. Shooting, defense, using the dribble, transition, midrange stuff was all there. Then it was about fine-tuning and trying to improve in each area.”

“I'm extremely willful to win, and I respond to challenges. Scoring titles and stuff like that... it sounds, well, I don't care how it sounds - to me, scoring comes easy. It's not a challenge to me to win the scoring title, because I know I can.”

“Love me or hate me, it's one or the other. Always has been. Hate my game, my swagger. Hate my fadeaway, my hunger. Hate that I'm a veteran. A champion. Hate that. Hate it with all your heart. And hate that I'm loved, for the exact same reasons.”

“If you're afraid to fail, then you're probably going to fail.”

“I played T-Mac. I cooked him. Roasted him. Wasn't even close.”

“My brain . . . it cannot process failure. It will not process failure. Because if I sit there and have to face myself and tell myself, 'You're a failure' . . . I think that's almost worse than death.”

“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.”

“I'm not the most patient of people...”

“We all can be masters at our craft, but you have to make sacrifices that come along with making that decision.”

“I write all day and outline stories, a sports mythological universe.”

“If there were camera phones back in the day, the biggest athletes in the world would have had a lot of explaining to do.”

“The Black Mamba collection of watches is me: It is my alter ego, so to speak. As I mentioned before, it is sharp, cutting edge and sleek which are characteristics I try to apply when I’m out there on the basketball court.”

“I don't talk trash often, but when I do, I go for the jugular.”

“Nobody in the world can guard me one-on-one.”

“Diligent accumulation of personal wealth is not inherently ungodly so long as it is complemented by equally diligent distribution of personal wealth.”

“He shouldn't have been in the NBA, but we were too cheap to pay for a point guard.”