Magic Johnson Quotes about Basketball

In life, winning and losing will both happen. What is never acceptable is quitting.

Talent is never enough. With few exceptions the best players are the hardest workers.

You're the only one who can make the difference. Whatever your dream is, go for it.

I'm a big believer in dreaming. If you don't dream it, you can't become it.

All kids need is a little help, a little hope and somebody who believes in them.

For me, it always goes back to something I learned in basketball. There's winning and there's losing, and in life you have to know they both will happen. But what's never been acceptable to me is quitting.

You don't have to be Magic to be special. You're already special, you're you.

Just celebrate the life you had, not the life you could've had.

If somebody says no to you, or if you get cut, Michael Jordan was cut his first year, but he came back and he was the best ever. That is what you have to have. The attitude that I'm going to show everybody, I'm going to work hard to get better and better.

Everybody on a championship team doesn't get publicity, but everyone can say he's a champion.

When you face a crisis, you know who your true friends are.

If people around you aren't going anywhere, if their dreams are no bigger than hanging out on the corner, or if they're dragging you down, get rid of them.

I tell you, it's funny because the only time I think about HIV is when I have to take my medicine twice a day.

When you are honest and open with young people, they let you in.

Everyone thought I was going to die like a year later, they didn't know. So I helped educate sports, and then the world, that a man living with HIV can play basketball. He's not going to give it to anybody by playing basketball.

Magic is who I am on the basketball court. Earvin is who I am.

The audience likes their emotions to be touched. They want to laugh and cry and feel good.

If you're a competitive person, that stays with you. You don't stop. You always look over your shoulder.

I am a businessman. This is what I do each and every day. I love it. I love coming to work. I never have a bad day.

Magic is crazy. He is that crazy wild guy on the basketball court that is very intense and very serious. He is the guy who lives and eats and breathes basketball.

Research your idea. See if there's a demand. A lot of people have great ideas, but they don't know if there's a need for it. You also have to research your competition.

I never think that there's something I can't do, whether it's beating my opponent one on one or practicing another hour because something about my game is just not right.

They said playing basketball would kill me. Well, not playing basketball was killing me.

I wanted to do two things when I was growing up, about your age. I wanted to play in the NBA, and I wanted to be a businessman after my basketball career was over, and that is what I am doing now.

My diet is mostly chicken and fish. I make sure I get a lot of vegetables, a lot of fruit. I am a big fruit man, I am a vegetable man anyway. And I also get a lot of rest. That's the key I may be up early, but I'm in bed early too.