I'm not an open person. Something's really got to be troubling me to have heart to heart talks with anybody.
— Troy Aikman
Broadcasting keeps you relevant.
I'm not here to propel myself into the limelight. I'm here to win a football game. If I am propelled into the limelight, I want it to be because of what I do on the football field, not because of some grand marketing strategy.
I probably would have played baseball if I had stayed in California... But I like Oklahoma better now. Football is bigger here. It's more exciting, anyway.
If you're healthy and you're told that you're capable of playing and the medical staff signs off on it, to me, you play because that's what you are paid to do.
I think when the cameras are on him is when Coach Switzer is at his best.
I'm looking forward to being a supporter of the Dallas Cowboys. I want to watch them win another Super Bowl.
I don't understand why guys want to be controversial and in the press all the time. It's just not my nature.
I believe - and this is my opinion - that at some point, football is not going to be the No. 1 sport. You talk about the ebbs and flows of what's popular and what's not. At some point, the TV ratings are not going to be there.
I've said for many, many years, as long as I can ever remember, when I'm asked, 'Hey, what do you look for first in a quarterback?' The first thing I look for is accuracy, because the rest of it doesn't matter.
When you stand and talk about player safety, and then, at the same time, you want to extend the season two more games, there's a contradiction in there.
I've never gotten into anything that I didn't feel I'd be successful doing.
Working with someone who's got your best interest at heart can make all the difference.
I consider myself to be one of the really, really fortunate ones to have gotten out of the game as healthy as I did.
Football is a tough game. It's a tough game for tough people.
I am not too open of a person. I don't really understand why someone holding a notepad and pen thinks he can ask me anything and then is offended when I don't answer.
I didn't know any hockey fans in Dallas.
I was brought up not to brag. I've always disliked people who do.
I've lived in Texas now longer than anywhere and then California and then Oklahoma, but yet Oklahoma is what I consider home.
No matter what happens for the rest of my career, at least I can say I took my team to a Super Bowl, and I was able to win.
I think I'm a harder critic on myself than anybody is. I think I judge myself harder than any of the coaches do.
Most of the pressure, if not all, is self-imposed.
The quarterback I enjoy watching the most is Dan Marino.
I think having won a Super Bowl puts you on a different level. I know, for me, it's extremely important to win this ballgame.
What I am is a direct result of how I was raised.
I'll never forget when I was 12 years old. I couldn't wait until the day I was 16 and could drive a car. I thought that'd be the end of life's problems. I mean, you can drive! What is there left? And then I turned 16 and realized there were still problems.
It doesn't matter how tough you are. It doesn't matter how smart you are or what a great leader you are. None of that stuff matters if you can't put the ball where you have to put it.
As the equipment has gotten better - and it's gotten better in an attempt to try to protect the player more - then the equipment becomes used more as a weapon.
I know what a championship locker room looks like, what a championship team requires.
Hey, I'm big-boned.
If you do anything with the Cowboys, there's an interest in it. And there are people who constantly want to write books about our teams in the '90s. They want to interview me. I say, 'Look, I've done it a million times. I'm just not interested. What's left to tell?'
Look, the only way for me to enjoy the game is to be consumed by it, to compete at a level where I know, at the end of that game, that my teammates and I did our absolute best.
I don't think I can fully explain what happens when you take on the role of quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. Sometimes, I can't even explain it to myself.
There are not many Chicagos, where people go out and support their sports teams, whether they are struggling or not.
You get down on yourself. You get disappointed in yourself. I expect more out of myself. As far as losing confidence as far as what I can do, that won't ever happen.
I'm happy to do some endorsements if I believe in the product. You're only in this game a short time, and you want to collect the money while you can.
I will always root for the Sooners.
Some coaches don't want their players to be the stars. They want their systems to be the stars.
The thing I've always liked about the playoffs is the finality of it and knowing there's so much importance on every play.
As a quarterback, I appreciated the passer rating whether you threw the ball a majority of the time or if you didn't throw it as much. You were judged on a level playing field, and I thought teams should be ranked similarly.
The one thing disappointing I had coming out of college was not playing in the Rose Bowl.
At one time, watching football was an event. Monday Night Football was a big event.
To say, 'I don't worry about perception,' you better worry about perception because it's a big part of making it through some very difficult times.
When I work a Cowboys game, my social media will blow up with, 'Hey, don't forget who you played for,' or, 'You traitor.'
The only way you're gonna eliminate helmet-to-helmet contact is to take the helmets off. Go back to leather helmets. I mean, I think a defensive player would be much less inclined to lead with his head if he had no protection.
It's not important to me that everyone knows everything about me or that I reveal all that I am or have.
You can't just can't simply replace head coaches and say, 'Now it's going to be better.'
I dwell in the past.
My father was not a man you wanted to mess with.
When you start looking at guys like Brett Favre, for instance, and other great quarterbacks that have played - Peyton Manning - you say, 'Gosh, how will these guys be replaced?'
