Mike Schmidt quotes:

They read their sports pages, know their statistics and either root like hell or boo our butts off. I love it. Give me vocal fans, pro or con, over the tourist types who show up in Houston or Montreal and just sit there.

If you could equate the amount of time and effort put in mentally and physically into succeeding on the baseball field and measured it by the dirt on your uniform, mine would have been black.

If you're associated with the Philadelphia media or town, you look for negatives. I don't know if there's something about their upbringing or they have too many hoagies, or too much cream cheese.

Virtually every civilized society today holds sacred the right to peaceably bury their dead.

But remember this: in the final analysis, you can believe in your dream, you can be taught, supported, motivated, and loved by others, but ultimately, your success depends on you. You must take responsibility for your body, your mind, and for your character.

Gold Gloves are nice to have people mention. They're basically saying you're a pretty good defensive player along with everything else. But I was about the offensive side.

I don't think I can get into my deep inner thoughts about hitting. It's like talking about religion.

Any time you think you have the game conquered, the game will turn around and punch you right in the nose.

Pete Rose is the most likable arrogant person I've ever met.

Philadelphia is the only city, where you can experience the thrill of victory and the agony of reading about it the next day.

I could ask the Phillies to keep me on to add to my statistics, but my love for the game won't let me do that.

That was one of the most comfortable things about leaving baseball was to leave the environment. It's very much like a rock star existence - the nightlife, the hotels, lack of privacy... There's a lot of temptations out there. It was nice getting away from it.

I sort of ride the fence on that whole steroid era issue. I don't have a definite opinion like some of my fellow Hall of Famers. Some of the guys were very, very adamant about a person being associated with steroids: 'They'll never be in the Hall of Fame. If they are, I'll never come back.'

It isn't that hard to get RBI's when you're hitting home runs, you generally get a least one.

You're trying your damndest, you strike out and they boo you. I act like it doesn't bother me, like I don't hear anything the fans say, but the truth is I hear every word of it and it kills me.

I'm 61 now, and I'm comfortable in my lifestyle... I don't yearn for the limelight on a regular basis. I get a kick out of it every so often. I go to Philly and go to a game, and they make a big deal about me. That's fun for a couple of days, and I can go back to my own private life.

I can't stand satisfaction. To me, greatness comes from that quest for perfection.

I need to be out earning. I can make more in two hours at a card show than I did [as a minor-league manager] all year.

Major League Baseball has created a Pete Rose purgatory, and that's where he is. And that's where he's always going to be. It's unfortunate that the commissioner's office has decided to allow that to be the reality. I don't think Pete would mind if they said 'No' to Pete. Pete wants them to go one way or the other and get him out of the void he's in.