Top 40 Stephen A. Smith Quotes

Don’t fake what you feel. I’ve never been about that. I never will be about that.

Long before my days at ESPN, the ‘Philadelphia Inquirer,’ or the ‘New York Daily News’ before that, I was a student at Thomas A. Edison Vocational and Technical High.

Watch me on CNN/SI. Check out clips from ‘Quite Frankly.’ I’ve always been Stephen A. Smith. I’ve been this way since the day I was born.

I’ve never taken an acting lesson in my life, and it’s not my chosen profession, so I’m flattered when people say I can do it and give me props for doing it.

The truth hurts sometimes, particularly when it involves someone at a low point in their life.

If you are the president of the United States of America, you are 70 years of age, and you are tweeting – literally competing with 15- and 17-year-olds – that is a problem.

I’ve been on MSNBC and CNN and Fox News. Not just Fox News, not just CNN.

Maybe, instead of putting our standards on other people, we should be very reticent, apprehensive, and deliberate and methodical in choosing whom we choose to elevate in the eyes of the public as role models.

I worked as an intern. I worked at a high school. I worked at a college newspaper while I was taking 18 credits while on the basketball team.

I came up in this industry at a time where you had to be a journalist. You had to break stories. You had to break news to elevate your career, to get to a certain point and a certain level in this business, before you even had the license to give your opinion, especially if you were a black man.

Once upon a time, it was hard to decipher what was more difficult to stomach: the foolish, detrimental behavior of a professional athlete or the apologists disguised as their inner circle, eager to excuse the inexcusable. And then there came Allen Iverson, who didn’t make it difficult at all.

You have haters from all walks of life. I could care less who wants me to fail. They inspire me.

If you are in the world of business, that means you are in the business of making money.

It’s my job as a reporter to not be about the business of making friends or enemies but just be in the tireless pursuit of truth.

Heart means something, especially in Gotham City, where the only thing worse than a scrub is someone devoid of that thumping sound inside the chest.

You can criticize me. You can crucify me. You can love me. You can hate me. Just don’t make the mistake of calling me inauthentic, because you’d be a damn liar.

My father is from the West Indies, the St. Thomas Virgin Islands.

My first newspaper job was a high school reporter for the ‘New York Daily News.’

I climbed up this business.

Let me be clear: Despite his flaws, I respect Andy Reid as a coach and as a person.

There is nothing worse than being mediocre at a whole bunch of different things.

I’m not an actor, though people say I can act.

I go to work every day with two missions. Two! No. 1: how can I make my bosses more money? And No. 2: how can I get some of it?

Like, when they say to me, ‘Screamin’ A.’ – I’m the only dude on the air who’s loud? I know plenty of white dudes who are screaming and going off. They’re called passionate. I’m called loud.

I know what I know, and what I don’t know, I’m willing to admit.

When you understand that everything – and I do mean everything – in this nation that we live in, if not this world, is connected to the almighty dollar, it doesn’t mean you worship it.

I can’t stand people who look into the camera and look into the eyes of millions of people and wax political correctness.

When we got home from school, every TV in the house was on ‘General Hospital,’ so if I wanted to watch TV instead of do homework, I had to watch ‘General Hospital.’

If something touches on the world of sports, ESPN has never told me that I cannot discuss a sports-related matter.

I realize there is a paucity of African-Americans in my position. Everywhere I go, people say, ‘Don’t mess this up. Don’t forget about us.’ You feel a tremendous responsibility, not to take the black side of things but to make sure that side gets heard, because if I don’t do it, who’s going to do it?

My family was heavily into sports.

Corporate America doesn’t give a damn about you. It does not care about your feelings. It wants productivity, and whoever doesn’t produce is going to be pushed out, and the way is going to be paved for somebody else to step into your shoes who can do the job.

The role that people think I play is not a role. When I go home, and I’m with my sisters, I’m the same way. When I’m with my boys, I’m the same way.

I’m associated with Walt Disney, but dammit, everybody knows that I’m a bottom feeder.

Negativity sells.

I can’t stand lying. I can’t stand liars.

A season is not made in a week or two any more than a stellar game epitomizes greatness.

I am a native of Hollis, Queens, N.Y.

Yes, I’m a personality. I accept that. O.K.? I understand it. But I’m a personality with credentials.

I have opinions that are based on the facts that are presented to me.