It's rare enough as an older generation player that you're 100% fit - there's always something niggling.
— Brian O'Driscoll
I don't feel comfortable with the kind of celebrity that has come my way - and I'm not very good at it, either.
I've always found when I was captain when other people were doing the talking for me, I didn't need to say as much, and when I did say one or two things, people tended to listen all the more.
I'm very much a glass-half-full person.
In a team situation, I think the players are more inclined to give the answer they believe the psychologist is looking for rather than maybe being totally honest.
Your name or what you've done on the rugby pitch is not going to carry you through for the rest of your life. I realise I'm going to have to eventually do something else, and that does frighten me a little bit.
There is still a big onus to be coached. I understand the best teams don't need a huge amount of coaching, but that's when a coach should decide not to do coaching.
When you are captain, you are never speaking for yourself.
I didn't know Ian Smith myself!
Growing up, I supported Manchester United, and my hero was Mark Hughes.
In your mid-20s, you think you'll go on for eternity. Then a point comes where you realise that's not going to be the case.
There is no point winning the semi if you don't win the final. It's as simple as that. No one will remember a big semifinal if you lose the final, so you have to do it all again.
Aaron Cruden and Beauden Barrett have both been decent, but Dan Carter takes it on to a different level, and he kicks his goals better than both of them.
I enjoy training so much, sometimes I don't want it to stop.
I'm not privy to the English set-up, but at the academies in Ireland, there is a huge focus on the weights room as opposed to whether they can throw a 10-metre pass on the run. They should be rugby players becoming athletes, not athletes becoming rugby players.
You go into the Lions camp with preconceived ideas about players and teams and then find guys are actually very different, and the beauty of the Lions is that all those characters are moulded into it. I find that exciting.
The victory is always sweeter... winning things with friends.
There have been a couple of things I've been involved in launching that have been a bit more public, but I've always had other things tipping away in the background.
If you stick around long enough and you do enough of the right things, you get seen in a largely positive light.
You cannot say things one week and then behave differently.
The big upside to being captain is it's a huge honour, but the downside is that there is definitely extra pressure.
I don't really want to be the centre of attention.
When you've done something for more than a third of your life, your whole adult life, and then all of a sudden you're going to have to switch off and say, 'No more,' you want to grasp as much of it and enjoy the last few years of it as much as you can. Because you can't get those years back.
You can't rely on your defence to win a World Cup.
You want to win everything you are in.
If you can be a good role model for people, well, great. You try and live your sporting life and the rest of your life as well as you can, and if it's something that people admire, well, fantastic. I don't sit at home and think about it too much, though - there's plenty of other things in my life going on.
I was a football fan before I became a rugby fan.
I just want to concentrate on my rugby and enjoy it and live in the moment.
I think my form dipped after the Six Nations in 2007, from the World Cup onwards.
If you can beat New Zealand, then you're probably going to win the World Cup.
I have ambitions to set records which will be hard to chase down, like getting more than 100 caps for Ireland.
I get burnt in the sun, so there's no point me getting pecs for when I take my shirt off in the summer.
I tell you one you straight off in Scotland - Nick de Luca. I don't see his name quoted, but I've played against Nick quite a lot and he is a good player - one of the trickiest centres I've played against.
I have always played into the belief that you are only ever borrowing the jersey; you never own the jersey because someone has gone before you and there is going to be someone after you, so it's a case of giving the jersey maximum respect.
As the summer moves on, there are Saturday nights when I come home and find friends I haven't even been out with sitting up in the hot tub.
I'm an eternal optimist.
I was quite small as a kid and maybe a little afraid physically. When I grew into myself, the realisation changed. That when you hurt yourself, it's transient; it doesn't stay forever.
I have interests outside of rugby and have been cultivating them for when I do decide to hang up the boots.
I still get a great buzz from rugby.
Being recognised by Guinness World Records in their 60th year is a real honour. It's also a real privilege for me to be positioned beside such sporting greats.
I don't care that people thought I was one way for my whole career because now that I am not attached to a team, I can have my own opinion, I can have my own voice. I can link myself to my own thought process rather than a generic message most teams try to get across.
I've been a professional rugby player all my life; I don't really know anything different.
Team sports are very important for shaping personalities. It's important that kids understand the mentality behind playing team sports and playing for one another and playing with friends.
You have perspective when little people come into your life. You take the best things you have and let them overshadow your disappointment.
If you start thinking about retirement in six months' time, you're already there.
Before there was any chance to go to England, I changed schools, and it was rugby from there on in.
It feels great to be a two-time Six Nations winner.
The Polynesian guys are pretty strong without going to the gym.
I was exposed to the gym at about 28. I never had a huge love or appetite for it - it was just a means to an end.
The 2001 tour to Australia would have been a great highlight in my career if the Lions had won the series. That might sound strange because it was a great tour in many ways, but, for me, the more time goes by, the less of a career highlight it becomes, and just more of a frustration.
