#Pressure Quotes

“What comes out when life squeezes you? When someone hurts or offends you? If anger, pain and fear come out of you, it's because that's what's inside.”

“If you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out. Nothing can come out of you that is not in you. If when you are pressured, anger comes out, it is not the fault of the person who pressured.”

“For nonconformity the world will whip you with its displeasure.”

“You can measure a man's character by the choices he makes under pressure.”

“When you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out, because that's what's inside. When you are squeezed, what comes out is what is inside.”

“Many people try to avoid pressure, yet the absence of any tension or pressure usually creates a sense of boredom and the lackluster experience of life that so many people complain about.”

“No matter who you are, we're creatures of habit. The better your habits are, the better they will be in pressure situations.”

“I think a lot of parents live their lives through the kids. Because they didn't make it [achieve something], they want their kids to make it. It puts a lot of undue pressure on the kids.”

“I knew at a young age, whether I was playing baseball or hockey or lacrosse, that my teammates were counting on me, whether it be to strike the last batter out in a baseball game or score a big goal in a hockey game.”

“Eight days ago, we were the toast of the town. Eight days later we're Thanksgiving turkeys.”

“I get a lot of parents coming up to me, telling me they are grooming their kids to be professional athletes. I'm really against that. I think it's a great life, and yeah, you can lead them in that direction. I think a lot of parents live their lives through the kids. Because they didn't make it, they want their kids to make it. It puts a lot of undue pressure on the kids.”

“Look at guys like Larry Bird and George Brett and John McEnroe; that's what they did in their careers. They all wanted to be the guy under the microscope late in the game or late in the match. So you just take on that know-how that that's part of your responsibility, and you learn that's what makes it exciting. That's what makes it fun!”

“What comes out of you when you are squeezed is what is inside of you.”

“There is such a thing as the pressure of darkness.”

“There's a lot of pressure putting an album out all over the world and hoping people everywhere like it.”

“You never know what's going on in somebody's mind. There's a lot of pressure on someone growing up. You have to watch it.”

“In a game like football, where you have very little time to decide what you are going to do, you have to react almost instinctively, naturally.”

“Some days I totally appreciate everything that's happening to me, and some days I feel everyone's waiting for me to mess up.”

“One: demonstrations always crash. And two: the probability of them crashing goes up exponentially with the number of people watching.”

“However, I think anything is better than high intellectual pressure. That is the most unbecoming thing there is. It makes the noses of the young girls so particularly large.”

“To be under pressure is inescapable. Pressure takes place through all the world; war, siege, the worries of state. We all know men who grumble under these pressures and complain. They are cowards. They lack splendour. But there is another sort of man who is under the same pressure but does not complain, for it is the friction which polishes him. It is the pressure which refines and makes him noble”

“Pressed into service means pressed out of shape.”

“In truth I never really liked any of the heavy drugs, because normally my energy is up when I'm performing, and that's about it. Cocaine is nothing new. It's the pressure, I think. People use it to relieve that, and for me it is about getting numb and forgetting. I have a reverse metabolic reaction to the stuff.”

“My life is nothing but pressure. All pressure. This pressure is like a heaviness. It's always on top of me, this heaviness. It's always there since I'm a kid. Other people wake up in the morning, 'A new day! Ah, up and at 'em!' I wake up, the heaviness is waiting for me nice. Sometimes I even talk to it. I say [adopts cheerful voice] 'Hi, heaviness!' and the heaviness looks back at me, [in an ominous growl] 'Today you're gonna get it good. You'll be drinking early today.'”

“Every day, you're only as good as your last show.”

“The press is ferocious. It forgives nothing, it only hunts for mistakes . . . In my position anyone sane would have left a long time ago.”

“There's always pressure, a great deal of pressure, when writing, since my first books were so successful.”

“I don't feel any pressure from fans. But I'm always in some kind of state of emotional turmoil. I would not describe myself as happy-go-lucky. That's not to say that I'm not happy.”

“Having a track record to live up to and the history of successes had become a hindrance. It becomes harder to break out of what people expect you to do.”

“You cannot defect form an insight. You cannot unsee what you have seen.”

“I have forgiven myself; I'll make a change. Once that forgiveness has taken place you can console yourself with the knowledge that a diamond is the result of extreme pressure. Less pressure is crystal, less than that is coal, less than that is fossilized leaves or plain dirt. Pressure can change you into something quite precious, quite wonderful, quote beautiful and extremely hard.”

“My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure.”

“Lighting that torch in Atlanta didn't make me nervous. Standing up to the government - that made me nervous.”

“Everyone in boxing probably makes out well except for the fighter. He's the only one that's on Skid Row most of the time; he's the only one that everybody just leaves when he loses his mind. He sometimes goes insane, he sometimes goes on the bottle, because it's an intensive pressure sport that allows people to just lose it.”

“It's a heavy duty to try to do everything and please everybody. My job was to go out there and play the game of basketball as best I can and provide entertainment for everyone who wanted to watch basketball. Obviously, people may not agree with that; again, I can't live with what everyone's impression of what I should or what I shouldn't do.”

“If I thought of the number of people who were watching me as I got ready to shoot, I?d miss it.”

“You're an idiot. You've screwed up every play we ever ran. You're too stupid to even remember the plays. We ought to get rid of you.”

“If I had stood at the free-throw line and thought about 10 million people watching me on the other side of the camera lens, I couldn't have made anything. So I mentally tried to put myself in a familiar place. I thought about all those times I shot free throws in practice and went through the same motion, the same technique that I had used thousands of times. You forget about the outcome. You know you are doing the right things. So you relax and perform.”

“I would tell players to relax and never think about what's at stake. Just think about the basketball game. If you start to think about who is going to win the championship, you've lost your focus.”

“Nothing is so great an adversary to those who make it their business to please as expectation.”

“Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity.”

“Everybody is always tugging at you. They'd all like a sort of chunk out of you. I don' think they realize it, but it's like 'grrr do this, grr do that' But you do want to stay intact-intact and on two feet.”

“One day the absurdity of the almost universal human belief in the slavery of other animals will be palpable. We shall then have discovered our souls and become worthier of sharing this planet with them.”

“After I won the Pulitzer, there was this sense of, 'OK, that's enough for you. Now go away.' What I wanted was to keep writing, keep working. But no one would produce anything of mine they didn't think would be as big as ''night, Mother.'”

“Wherever you may seek solitude, men will ferret you out and compel you to belong to their desperate company of oddfellows.”

“Remember, George, this is no time to go wobbly.”

“Only the unprepared are overcome by pressure”

“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?”

“It's easy to forget who you are.”

“There are so many people pulling at me at one time - some want the business, some want my love, some just want my support, just to be there or to acknowledge them the same way I used to. To be able to figure that out is an ongoing process, because there's always another show, another album, another moment that I don't want to miss. But I'm pacing myself. I hope the powers that be keep me on a straight course.”