Kareem Abdul-Jabbar quotes:

When I was 17, I worked in a mentoring program in Harlem designed to improve the community. That's when I first gained an appreciation of the Harlem Renaissance, a time when African-Americans rose to prominence in American culture. For the first time, they were taken seriously as artists, musicians, writers, athletes, and as political thinkers.

The type of leukemia that I am dealing with is treatable. So if I do what my doctors tell me to do - get my blood checked regularly, take my meds and consult with my doctor and follow any additional instructions he might make - I will be able to maintain my good health and live my life with a minimum of disruptions to my lifestyle.

High school dropouts are forfeiting their opportunity to pursue the American Dream.

My grandfather and my uncle both died from colorectal cancer, my dad almost died from it and I have the gene for it.

Sports and entertainment are the only places where inner-city kids see themselves being able to succeed. Their intellectual development is something they don't relate to.

Michael Jordan and Magic and myself all learned how to play the game in college programs that emphasized the team.

My most memorable moment came in 1985 as we beat the Boston Celtics.

I think race has been a burden for black Americans. Being Muslim has also been a challenge because so many people do not understand Islam.

I enjoy seeing new places.

OK, I'll put it like this: I doubt if we will see another All-American basketball athlete who is a Rhodes Scholar.

Music rhythms are mathematical patterns. When you hear a song and your body starts moving with it, your body is doing math. The kids in their parents' garage practicing to be a band may not realize it, but they're also practicing math.

Islam is about finding your own space.

Great players are willing to give up their own personal achievement for the achievement of the group. It enhances everybody.

I have been coaching recently. I coached high school basketball in Arizona, and I hope that more opportunities become available.

What I have is P.H. positive chronic myeloid leukemia, which is an aberration in your white blood cells.

The game has basically not changed since I ended my career.

I didn't really seek attention. I just wanted to play the game well and go home.

The extra pass and the extra effort on defense always get the job done.

You're never really cancer-free and I should have known that.

This is what I would have done if I had to have a real job: I would have been a history teacher.

I always thought I could do a good job coaching, but the opportunities have not presented themselves.

I tell kids to pursue their basketball dreams, but I tell them to not let that be their only dream.

A lot of players think the game is all about individual performances when it's really all about a team game.

Reporters used to ask me the same inane questions year-in and year-out, city-to-city, and it would drive me crazy.

A team will always appreciate a great individual if he's willing to sacrifice for the group.

I want people to understand that I intend to continue living and doing all the things that I love to do up until the end. And the end is by no means rushing up on me.

You got guys now declaring they're ready to play pro ball in their second or third year of high school. It's crazy! They're missing so much.

I think I really benefited from going to college.

I'm still my parent's child, I'm still me, but I made a choice. I evolved into Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I think it has to do with evolution.

When the doctor told me I had cancer, I was scared.

I was a baseball fan myself, I wanted to play baseball.

Today's youth are told to get rich or die trying and they really shouldn't take that attitude forward with them.

After practice, I would have to go back to the dorm and take a nap.

As a parent, I have a job as a role model to my children, and by extension, to other young people.

I wanted to play baseball!

I just like seeing the world, and it doesn't matter where.

Jackie Robinson, as an athlete and as someone who was trying to make a stand for equality, he was exemplary.

I saw Islam as the correct way to live, and I chose to try to live that way.

Five guys on the court working together can achieve more than five talented individuals who come and go as individuals.

Black people don't have an accurate idea of their history, which has been either suppressed or distorted.

I felt that a number of people might have questioned my loyalty, but I continue to be a patriotic American.

I expect more people from China and Asia to end up in the NBA.

In athletics there's always been a willingness to cheat if it looks like you're not cheating. I think that's just a quirk of human nature.

All the courage and competitiveness of Jackie Robinson affects me to this day. If I patterned my life after anyone it was him, not because he was the first black baseball player in the majors but because he was a hero.

Your best athletes might give basketball a try just when they think, geez, this might be something that pays off for me in the end.

It's hard for young players to see the big picture. They just see three or four years down the road.

When the line started to blur between the fans and the players, sometimes things can get ugly.

Initially when I stopped playing, I had accumulated some burnout.

You can't win if you don't play as a unit.

You can't win unless you learn how to lose.

My mother had to send me to the movies with my birth certificate, so that I wouldn't have to pay the extra fifty cents that the adults had to pay.

I'm not going to disappear.

Basketball is an endurance sport, and you have to learn to control your breath; that's the essence of yoga, too. So, I consciously began using yoga techniques in my practice and playing. I think yoga helped reduce the number and severity of injuries I suffered. As preventative medicine, it's unequaled.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that the 761st was Patton's best tank unit and nobody knew about it.

You have to be able to center yourself, to let all of your emotions go... Don't ever forget that you play with your soul as well as your body.

I would suggest that teachers show their students concrete examples of the negative effects of the actions that gangsta rappers glorify.

There are rap groups that have a positive outlook in their art. These groups should be shown as an alternative to gangsta rap.

Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they are executed.

I've had enough success for two lifetimes, My success is talent put together with hard work and luck.

One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.

There's a ball. There's a hoop. You put the ball through the hoop. That's success.

As brilliant an individual that Michael Jordan was, he was not successful until he got with a good team unit.

I think the NBA will certainly survive without Michael Jordan.

Elgin's game was an incredible performance, also. I don't think there's any comparison. Elgin did it without three-point lines. His game was attacking the hoop and hitting jumpers inside 20 feet. Kobe's range is unreal, and he does it his way.

If ISIS represents Islam, then the KKK represents Christianity

I think Kwame will be an asset to the Lakers.

The word 'leukemia' is a very frightening word. In many instances, it's a killer and it's something that you have to deal with in a very serious and determined way if you're going to beat it.

I try to do the right thing at the right time. They may just be little things, but usually they make the difference between winning and losing.

I listen to jazz mainly. Mainstream jazz.

I think the NBA players have to be held accountable in a reasonable way, just like any other professionals.

I feel that Dennis Rodman has become a problem. He will be more of a problem than an asset. Of course, he can prove me wrong.

When a rap song glorifies violence, death and sadness and loss is inflicted because of the violence.

If they took the idea that they could escape poverty through education, I think it would make a more basic and long-lasting change in the way things happen. What we need are positive, realistic goals and the willingness to work. Hard work and practical goals.

What we need are positive, realistic goals and the willingness to work. Hard work and practical goals.

I try to do the right thing at the...

A lot of young players don't really know much about the history of the game and a lot of them are missing out on what the game is all about, especially the whole concept of sportsmanship and teamwork.

Cancer is a scary thing and you have to deal with it seriously.

The 3-point shot has created a situation in the game akin to 'Lotto' fever.

I totally alienated some reporters as I retreated.

One man cannot make a team.

I don't get a big charge out of being the leading scorer. The object of competing is winning. I just try to do what has to be done for us to win. That might be anything at the time - defense, rebounding, passing. I get great satisfaction out of being a team player.

My choosing Islam was not a political statement; it was a spiritual statement.

I think someone should explain to the child that it's OK to make mistakes. That's how we learn. When we compete, we make mistakes.

I think that the good and the great are only separated by the willingness to sacrifice.

The '80s made up for all the abuse I took during the '70s. I outlived all my critics. By the time I retired, everybody saw me as a venerable institution. Things do change.

I pitched and I played the outfield.

I am highly offended by the total lack of acknowledgement of my contribution to Laker success.

I'm not comfortable being preachy, but more people need to start spending as much time in the library as they do on the basketball court.

I think black Americans expect too much from individual black Americans in terms of changing the status quo.

In a typical history book, black Americans are mentioned in the context of slavery or civil rights. There's so much more to the story.

I did a book in 1996, an overview of black history. In that process I became more aware of a lot of the black inventors of the 19th century.

I rooted for the Dodgers when they were in Brooklyn.

I was getting hot flashes and sweats on a regular basis. That's not normal, even for my age.

I can do something else besides stuff a ball through a hoop. My biggest resource is my mind.

I've never been a person to share my private life, but I can help save lives.

I hope to be involved in a successful movie script.

Yoga is just good for you.

[Albert] Hoxie, my Western Civilization professor. I had him in my freshman year and he opened up an extraordinary world to me that I've never forgotten. He used his extensive knowledge of art history to illustrate the development of Western culture and politics.

[Coaching] is a difficult job which everyone who owns a TV thinks they can do better at.

Actor Mike Warren [was my former teammate], who was in Hill Street Blues. There are more, but it's starting to sound like a team reunion at Red Lobster. They were a great bunch of guys and we accomplished a lot together. That's something you don't forget.

Alexander Hamilton realized that warfare was part and parcel of human nature, and it's something we had to prepare for.

But all was not sunshine and Marvin Gaye songs. [UCLA] also recruited black students as part of a High Potential Program that was meant to bring diversity to the campus. Two of the students that were part of that program were Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter and John Huggins, Jr., both members of the Black Panther Party's Southern California Chapter.

But people don't know if I can teach the game. I know I can. My experience in Oklahoma was positive. It opened my eyes to how the game is played - the interaction among players, fans and media, how all that works. You have to know about the business of the game and how the actions of players and coaches affect the business. I think I have it down now.

Center is a very tough position to play.

Common decency demands that [NCAA athletes] should be paid, but the only way it will happen is the same way workers got paid throughout American history, through a strong union.

Culture and politics were inseparable [in the Sixties], which gave a soundtrack to political awareness and activism.

During 1866 and 1922, Native Americans and black soldiers often intermingled in the American west, on the frontier.

Each story, novel, poem and play presents a vision of the world that illuminates the dark cave of life we stumble through. We can see better where we're going, what sudden drop to avoid, where the cool water is running.

Either because I was an athlete or because I was black - probably both - there seemed to be a clear assumption that I wouldn't be up to the work.

Few players have cast a spell across the game like Yao Ming, before or since.

For me, the bold jazz of John Coltrane and Miles Davis reflected the bold attitude in African-Americans finding their political identity and voice.

Fundamental preparation is always effective. Work on those parts of your game that are fundamentally weak.

I could have skated by as an athlete, but the world is so much bigger and more interesting than any one thing. I didn't want to be pigeonholed as just a jock. I'm also an author, a student of history, and I collect memorabilia from the Wild West. I'm also a son, a father, and a friend.

I don't know if I was the baddest. People kind of saw me in that light.

I don't really care who's doing drugs in the NBA as long as the scene isn't adversely affecting my team and teammates. I've known enough drug users-going as far back as grade school and the streets of New York-not to view them as pariahs or lost souls. I've certainly smoked more than my quota of weed.

I feel like I've always been a full-time historian, but nobody knows it.

I feel that there has been progress made since I was a boy on matters of race, but we have a long way to go.

I got all A's and was hated for it; I spoke correctly and was called a punk.

I had a moment like that with Wilt (Chamberlain). He knocked me out of bounds, I came back and faked him, came across the middle and dunked on him.

I have always thought that writers come with any variety of attributes. Some are capable and some aren't.