Kobe Bryant quotes:

I'll do whatever it takes to win games, whether it's sitting on a bench waving a towel, handing a cup of water to a teammate, or hitting the game-winning shot.

I have self-doubt. I have insecurity. I have fear of failure. I have nights when I show up at the arena and I'm like, 'My back hurts, my feet hurt, my knees hurt. I don't have it. I just want to chill.' We all have self-doubt. You don't deny it, but you also don't capitulate to it. You embrace it.

I've played with IVs before, during and after games. I've played with a broken hand, a sprained ankle, a torn shoulder, a fractured tooth, a severed lip, and a knee the size of a softball. I don't miss 15 games because of a toe injury that everybody knows wasn't that serious in the first place.

In an individual sport, yes, you have to win titles. Baseball's different. But basketball, hockey? One person can control the tempo of a game, can completely alter the momentum of a series. There's a lot of great individual talent.

Dropkick Murphys get me going, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana... plus, all the regular hip-hop stuff.

Can I jump over two or three guys like I used to? No. Am I as fast as I used to be? No, but I still have the fundamentals and smarts. That's what enables me to still be a dominant player. As a kid growing up, I never skipped steps. I always worked on fundamentals because I know athleticism is fleeting.

These young guys are playing checkers. I'm out there playing chess.

My parents are my backbone. Still are. They're the only group that will support you if you score zero or you score 40.

The Black Mamba collection of watches is me: It is my alter ego, so to speak. As I mentioned before, it is sharp, cutting edge and sleek which are characteristics I try to apply when I'm out there on the basketball court.

At the end of 2003, my game was complete. Shooting, defense, using the dribble, transition, midrange stuff was all there. Then it was about fine-tuning and trying to improve in each area.

Christmas morning, I'm going to open presents with my kids. I'm going to take pictures of them opening the presents. Then I'm going to come to the Staples Center and get ready to work.

We all know what flopping is when we see it. The stuff that you see is where guys aren't really getting hit at all and are just flailing around like a fish out of water.

Sports are such a great teacher. I think of everything they've taught me: camaraderie, humility, how to resolve differences.

I can't relate to lazy people. We don't speak the same language. I don't understand you. I don't want to understand you.

If there were camera phones back in the day, the biggest athletes in the world would have had a lot of explaining to do.

The topic of leadership is a touchy one. A lot of leaders fail because they don't have the bravery to touch that nerve or strike that chord. Throughout my years, I haven't had that fear.

As far as carrying the torch for the years to come, I don't know. I just want to be the best basketball player I can be.

Basketball is my refuge, my sanctuary. I go back to being a kid on the playground. When I get here, it's all good.

What people see on court is another side of me; it's not me.

I focus on one thing and one thing only - that's trying to win as many championships as I can.

What does perfection look like to me? Championship rings

There's been a lot of talk of me being a one-man show but that's simply not the case. We win games when I score 40 points and we've won when I score 10.

Everyone looks at your watch and it represents who you are, your values and your personal style.

I've known for a long time that they're a bunch of idiots.

I'm chasing perfection.

People look at my competitive spirit, and they automatically attach it to the thing that's most similar, most easily recognizable, which is Michael [Jordan's] competitive spirit. I'm different. I enjoy building. I enjoy the process of putting the puzzle together, and then the byproduct of that, the consequence of that, is beating somebody. That becomes the cherry on top, the icing on the cake.

The hunger [to success] is the same, no matter what it is that you're doing. It's like an unquenchable thirst to learn more, or to feel like you could have done more, and to be brutally honest and self critical, which is very hard to do. It's easy, and human nature is to just blame somebody else. It's very, very hard to self assess.

It's hard for me to grasp the concept of somebody being nervous when I'm talking to them.

People just don't understand how obsessed I am with winning.

I'm not the most patient of people.

It's wonderful for the players. It's a huge challenge and a huge responsibility for us to get our act together, get our butts in gear. Phil isn't going to bail us out because of our mental lapses.

I realize now that there's a strength in dunking that I can use to my advantage. When you dunk all the time it isn't as demoralizing to the opponent, but when you dunk at a key moment in the game you can use it to change the momentum.

Difficulty is a nurse of greatness-a harsh nurse, who rocks her foster children roughly, but rocks them in strength and athletic proportion. The mind, grappling with great aims and wrestling with mighty impediments, grows by a certain necessity to the stature of greatness.

Friends come and go but banners hang forever.

The party's just getting started. This is where the fun starts.

Michael Jackson? He was something more (than one of my favorite entertainers), a true friend. He wasn't just a genius. Above all, he was a good person, who gave so much. He gave people values, he encouraged them to better themselves all the time. He was far deeper and more authentic than people could see. He was misunderstood too many times

Winning takes precedence over all. There's no gray area. No almosts.

I wear the number 10 Jersey for the US National Team in honour of the Greatest athlete I have ever seen: Messi.

If you want to make history, you have to do historic things

I don't set out to make a really hot shoe, I set out to make a product that is true to where I am.

You're my backbone. You're a blessing. You're a piece of my heart. You're the air I breathe. And you're the strongest person I know, and I'm so sorry for having to put you through this and having to put our family through this.

Everyting negative - pressure, challenges - is all an opportunity for me to rise.

The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do.

If you're afraid to fail, then you're probably going to fail.

I don't want to be the next Michael Jordan, I only want to be Kobe Bryant.

I have nothing in common with lazy people who blame others for their lack of success. Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.

Love me or hate me. It's one or the other. Always has been. Hate my game, my swagger. Hate my fadeaway, my hunger. Hate that I'm a veteran, a champion. Hate that. Hate it with all your heart. And hate that I'm loved for the exact same reasons.

The guy said NBA players are one in a million, ... I said, 'Man, look, I'm going to be that one in a million.

Everybody wants to talk about NBA players being selfish and arrogant and individuals. But what you saw today was a team bonding and facing adversity and coming out with a big win.

Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.

If I panic, everyone else panics.

I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. No matter what the injury - unless it's completely debilitating - I'm going to be the same player I've always been. I'll figure it out. I'll make some tweaks, some changes, but I'm still coming.

He shouldn't have been in the NBA, but we were too cheap to pay for a point guard.

I don't talk trash often, but when I do, I go for the jugular.

Twitter is great to connect with fans and be transparent. I enjoy that aspect about it. But really, I'm still trying to figure it out.

I'm extremely willful to win, and I respond to challenges. Scoring titles and stuff like that... it sounds, well, I don't care how it sounds - to me, scoring comes easy. It's not a challenge to me to win the scoring title, because I know I can.

Just got one more than Shaq. You can take that to the bank.

It never bothered me when people would say, 'You only win championships because you're playing with Shaq.' It bothered me when he said it.

I like playing for the purple and gold. This is where I want to finish up.

The important thing is that your teammates have to know you're pulling for them and you really want them to be successful.

I feel like I just returned a 100-yard kickoff in the last two minutes of the Super Bowl to win it all, only to have my run called back by a flag on the play.

You just try to take it one day at a time, ... You step on the basketball floor and just play. It's fun. I'm comfortable with it.

You have to be able to separate business from the love of the game. There were a lot of decisions made business-wise that I wasn't happy with, and I took a lot of blame over the years. But you have to be able to separate that from the love you have for the game.

I love going one-on-one with someone. That's what I do. I've never lost. It's a whole different game, just to have them right in front of you and be able to do whatever you want.

One thing you gotta know about me is I have absolutely no filter. I have no problem saying what the hell I think of someone.

The only thing I'm afraid of is bees. I don't like bees. I'm allergic to them.

You want me to own a team and deal with these rich, spoiled stubborn athletes, and try to get them to perform? No thank you.

It's disgusting, but my father taught me when your mouth gets dry, just suck the sweat out of your own jersey. There's no bravado to any of it; it's just a disgusting little trick.

Everything negative - pressure, challenges - is all an opportunity for me to rise.

I don't think a coach becomes the right coach until he wins a championship.

The people who truly know me know what I'm like. There have been people who try to say things that aren't fair, and I check them. And then they don't like me because I checked them.

I'm reflective only in the sense that I learn to move forward. I reflect with a purpose.

I'm more than comfortable just sitting back and scoring 21, 22 points or whatever and getting 10, 11 assists whatever the case might be. More than comfortable with that. It's just a matter of the pieces that you have around you and what you can do to elevate everybody else.

A lot of times things get blown out of proportion in a negative light, especially in the NBA, ... But there are a lot of players in the NBA who really care about the community and want to use their basketball-playing ability for a good cause.

Because we're old as sh*t. What do you want?

Being a leader, it's the art of trying to find the balance, the right times with each individual and what they need at that moment. It requires looking outward as opposed to looking inside.

By eloquence I understand those appeals to our moral perceptions that produce emotion as soon as they are uttered. This is the very enthusiasm that is the parent of poetry. Let the same man go to his closet and clothe in numbers conceptions full of the same fire and spirit, and they will be poetry.

Dear Basketball, From the moment I started rolling my dad's tube socks and shooting imaginary game-winning shots ... I fell in love with you.

Diligent accumulation of personal wealth is not inherently ungodly so long as it is complemented by equally diligent distribution of personal wealth.

Each moment of my life I was dreaming of how great I could be, and continued working hard. Each time I closed my eyes I could see me shining bright like a sun.

Eeew, I'd be a little uncomfortable Googling myself. People sit there - and Google themselves? That's kind of weird.

Everybody has a different journey.

Everybody shut up. Let us work.

Everything has a purpose. And that purpose has a story that goes along with it. It just depends on what your passion is.

For us to be the team that got him that historic 10th championship is special for us.

He [Phil Jackson] is such a basketball genius in terms of the details of the game, the little nuances of the game and the rhythm of the game.

He is a fool who only sees the mischiefs that are past.

Heroes come and go, but legends are forever.

Horrible, terrible AAU basketball. It's stupid. It doesn't teach our kids how to play the game at all so you wind up having players that are big and they bring it up and they do all this fancy crap and they don't know how to post. They don't know the fundamentals of the game. It's stupid.

I didn't expect this award [the 2008 MVP] would come to me. I'm surprised. I've played pretty well in other seasons. Our team hasn't been as good. Things just fell into place.

I don't have to hear that criticism, that idotic criticism anymore.

I don't just try to score. The challenge is elevating my teammates to be able to win a championship.

I draw from the crowd a lot.

I enjoy playing at the heart of it is just a kid who really loves playing the game of basketball.

I felt like when we came back from the All-Star break we needed everybody to feel like they were part of the team, ... I'm just trying to do whatever the team needs at any given time.

I grew up in front of these people, and now they are seeing me as an 'older' young man.

I had some shots that I felt like I should've made; I just didn't make them. I'm not going to shoot the ball great every night.

I have my own identity ... The whole Michael thing does drive me nuts sometimes because people won't leave it alone. He's bald, I have hair. He's almost 40, I'm 22. Seriously though, I wish people would let it be and let me just be Kobe.

I know how to play my guard spot, ... He can worry about the low post.

I love the weather, I love my '63 droptop Impala, I love the 405, and I love my guys.

I never tried to prove anything to someone else. I wanted to prove something to myself.

I played T-Mac. I cooked him. Roasted him. Wasn't even close.

I think that game is a testament to what happens when you put no ceiling to what you're capable of doing.

I wanna be the best, simple and plain

I was an idiot when I was a kid.

I was just letting the shots fly. You know, I don't leave any bullets in the chamber.

I was probably born a scorer, but I was made a winner. Whatever works, whatever wins championships, wins games, that's what I do.

I was shooting 45 times a game. What was I supposed to do? Pass it into Chris Mihm & Kwame Brown?

I wonâ??t react to something just because Iâ??m supposed to, because Iâ??m an African-American

I wouldn't say I'm a ball hog. I'm a shooter.

I write all day and outline stories, a sports mythological universe.

If they want to win right now, I'm all for it. That's all I said the whole time. If you want to wait five years, let me know. My legs aren't as young as they used to be.

If you don't believe in yourself...nobo dy else will.

If you make it, great. If you miss it, what's there to be afraid of?

If you see me in a fight with a bear, pray for the bear

I'm a scorer, not a triple-double player

I'm focused on the task that lies ahead for us.