If you start chasing around trying to get steals for your own benefit, then you really put your defense at a disadvantage. It's not a big thing for me; if it happens, great.
— John Stockton
I guess I'd rather be comfortable and play well because I'm comfortable than to get recognition and play someplace where I wouldn't be comfortable and wouldn't enjoy myself.
I think records are irrelevant, but I'm being approached about it all the time. If I could avoid it, that would be great.
I was just lucky to have a uniform.
I think I laid it all out there for 19 years, and you don't always achieve all the goals that you shoot for.
Usually for the last play, everyone goes helter-skelter. They go to the wrong spots. They don't do the right thing.
I have an ego like everyone else. I want to be recognized as a good ballplayer.
I don't like to give in to injuries. I don't like to use them as excuses. Everybody has them.
I know my first years sitting on the bench, largely behind Rickey Green, was a great learning tool for me.
Struggles are what made everything worth while.
I think there are a lot of ways to play the PG position. Scoring first is a way that works for them and their teams. I personally like to watch PGs that like to work for others.
You can't afford to hop around and act like a kid when you have to get back on defense and worry about the other parts of the game. But at the end, when the buzzer sounds, you have the luxury of hopping around and looking foolish for a while.
It's always in a cycle. One set of plays will work really well for a time, and then defenses figure it out, and you go to something else.
I want my kids to have a life like I did growing up. The greatest gift I was given in life was from my parents. Though I can't match them, I'd like to be that kind of parent.
The game's a beautiful game when five guys go out there and give something of themselves so that you can win.
To be a great player and a great scorer, you have to find ways to get yourself open and get shots off. It's a dog fight.
I'm a bartender's son. Some things you never forget.
Essentially, when you join a team, you're making a commitment to your team. You can't take that lightly.
When you're younger, you might make some shots you're not normally capable of, because you're more fluid, maybe stronger, maybe faster. As you get older, you learn not to take those crazy shots.
I have a great respect for people that write. I don't know how they do it every day... or do novels that they have to use their minds instead of just their memories. It's tough duty.
Once I came to Salt Lake City, I didn't want to go anywhere else. It was home sweet home for me.
Just because everybody else does something isn't a good enough reason to do anything.
I don't care if people even discuss what I did. But if anyone is ever sitting around the kitchen table talking about my career, I hope they say they enjoyed watching me play. That's good enough.
I don't go home to parades.
Mostly, I go in the weight room and visit.
The West is tough. Great teams. Great records, top to bottom.
I don't crush the kids. But I do want them to know that they have to earn what they get. I'm not like Jimmy Piersall's dad or anything. I mean, I tell them I'm happy if they just do the best they can. My parents were that way with me.
I think everybody should have the attitude that you can't allow yourself to be hurt. You avoid a lot just with that attitude.
My brother thundered me in everything most of my life. He was a great carrot out in front of me. All I wanted to do, ever, was beat him at anything.
I think I've preserved most of my private life, and I think that's still important for me, and that's still important for my family.
I've been lucky to have great coaching, great teammates, and a desire to keep getting better. That, slowly over time, helped me grow from an average high school player to the NBA.
