quotations about sports
In a world of life-and-death conflicts, spectator sports give us a "time-out" -- an opportunity to relax and celebrate human skill, dedication, and success in a spirit of simple joy.
THOMAS A. BOWDEN
Santa Monica Daily Press, February 5, 2007
Americans did very little ski jumping until the television program "Wide World of Sports" began showing a promotional film snippet in which a ski jumper hurtles off the edge of the chute, completely out of control, with various important organs flying out of his body.... Fitness buffs saw this and realized that any activity with such great potential for being fatal must be very good for you, so the sport began to catch on.
DAVE BARRY
Dave Barry's Stay Fit and Healthy Until You're Dead
Good sports are rarely good at sports.
SALLY POPLIN
attributed, Biteback Dictionary of Humorous Sporting Quotations
Sport is a preserver of health.
CRATES
attributed, Day's Collacon
Life without sports is like life without underpants.
BILLY BOWDEN
attributed, Biteback Dictionary of Humorous Sporting Quotations
Having fun while playing sports is harder than it seems from the sofa. This is as true for amateur athletes as it is for professionals but certainly moreso when one's livelihood is on the line. Every athlete feels the frustration of failure. If those failures pile up, the sport stops being fun. That predicament only multiplies when every performance is also an audition.
LTG8
"Phils Just Wanna Have Fun: Phillies 10, Marlins 3", The Good Phight, July 19, 2017
Mankind's yearning to engage in sports is older than recorded history, dating back to the time millions of years ago, when the first primitive man picked up a crude club and a round rock, tossed the rock into the air, and whomped the club into the sloping forehead of the first primitive umpire.
DAVE BARRY
Dave Barry's Greatest Hits
There are sports of solitude: hiking, swimming, running. And all sports drive one into one's resources of solitude: in the end, either the solitary individual heart has courage and stamina or it has not. Deep in the recesses of the solitary heart the most intense conflict ... is played out. The outward body is only this inner struggle's sacrament, it's expression of fleshly acts.
MICHAEL NOVAK
The Joy of Sports: End Zones, Bases, Baskets, Balls, and the Consecration of the American Spirit
Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona.
GEORGE WILL
Baseball Almanac
Sports are a delight because they are an aside. They are our liberty. They are our bursting of the shackles of conscientious suffering. They are, deliciously, ends in themselves.
MICHAEL NOVAK
The Joy of Sports: End Zones, Bases, Baskets, Balls, and the Consecration of the American Spirit
I ... hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense. If I had my way no man guilty of golf would be eligible to any office of trust or profit under the United States.
H. L. MENCKEN
Heathen Days: Mencken's Autobiography: 1890-1936
For neither if there were a good boxer among the people, nor if there were a pentathlete or wrestling, nor again if there were someone swift of foot -- which is most honoured of all men's deed of strength -- would for this reason a city be better governed.
XENOPHANES
Xenophanes of Colophon: Fragments
Competition is the spice of sports; but if you make spice the whole meal you'll be sick.
GEORGE LEONARD
attributed, Get Motivated!
Everyone says, "Sports are tribal," and they're right, but every sport is increasingly global. Fans are now consumers of sports that years ago they barely knew existed.
DAVID BLATT
"Talking Sports with the Global Sports Party", AlleyWatch, July 31, 2017
Life without sport is not life.
MARY BREESE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Every sport pretends to a literature, but people don't believe it of any sport but their own.
SIR ALISTAIR COOKE
The Marvellous Mania: Alistair Cooke on Golf
The more violent the body contact of the sports you watch, the lower your class.
PAUL FUSSELL
Class: A Guide Through the American Status System
You always know it's not going to be like this forever. That's just -- it's part of playing sports. You're always going to have down cycles. Unfortunately we go through those times. You don't ever want to go through them, trust me, it doesn't feel good, but it's just part of playing sport, and especially in our sport, longevity is just huge here. You've got a career that could literally span -- for me, 30 years on the regular Tour. There's no other profession really like that, that you can play at a high level for that long. No, you're going to have periods like that. You can't win every tournament.
TIGER WOODS
interview, December 9, 2004
Sport is not something you can immediately walk away from, it is something which slowly starts to disappear from you.
GERALD HUANG
In the Life: Gerald Huang
Electronic sports are sports. Or maybe they are not, depending on who you ask. However, there is no denying the fact that gaming and eSports have taken hold of a major portion of an entire generation.
FABIO SCHLOSSER VILA
"In North America, eSports are taking the college route", DW, July 27, 2017