I am very shy. When I go to a charity ball, I don’t mind if people look at my sleeves. I mind terribly if I have to say something.
I took a couple of classes in clowning, but that was more like Lucille Ball kind of slapstick, not Ringling Brothers. But we had to do things silently, and the teacher would do this running commentary. ‘Does this make Clown sad? Oh, Clown doesn’t like that, does Clown?’ Always ‘Clown.’ Never a name.
I never wanted to emulate anyone. Oh, I loved Elizabeth Taylor, Mae West, Lucille Ball. But I never tried to copy. I always wanted to be an original.
The key is to hit the ball first, then the sand. Even if you catch it a bit thin, you’ll still get plenty of run. Hitting it fat is what you want to avoid.
We used to look at each other and say, ‘We play the same game with the same rules, the same bat, the same ball, the same field. What the hell does color have to do with it? You don’t play with color. You play with talent.’
With things like ‘Dragon Ball,’ in the case of fight scenes, I’d take the panel layout across two pages when the book is opened and alter it by angling them, and making them bigger or smaller, to give movement to the panels themselves.
When I dive for a ball I’m not diving because it looks spectacular – I’m trying win the point. When I jump it’s because it’s easy for me to jump. I’m not being cocky but because I can jump higher than other people it looks more spectacular. Other players smash but I go higher so it looks different.
The first thing is to be patient, which is probably the hardest thing to do. Don’t worry if blokes are whacking you out of the park because you still have the opportunity to get him out next ball, even if it’s not the same ball.
I’m not a ball in a pinball machine. I know what I want.
Just take the ball and throw it where you want to. Throw strikes. Home plate don’t move.
Not missing games, miss one game due to injury in my career, and that even hurt me to miss that game, but I just love to get out there and compete, both ends of the ball, and I don’t think I’m afraid to take the big shot. If I’m 2-for-15, I’m not afraid to take that shot, make it 3-for-16.
Most men, even egotistic actors, always shy away from dancing with me. Other dancers report the same trouble. They probably figure that I would be mentally comparing them with Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly. So I go to parties and usually just sit – unless George Burns is there – and then I have a ball.
Nolan Ryan is pitching much better now that he has his curve ball straightened out.
I got the idea for ‘Throne of Glass’ when I was sixteen. Music always inspires my books, and when I was listening to the ‘Cinderella’ soundtrack, I thought, ‘What if Cinderella was actually an assassin who liked getting dressed up all pretty and going to the ball, but then she wouldn’t mind kicking butt?’
By that time I was thinking a little about pro ball and hopeful that someone would draft me.
Man, anytime the ball goes through the basket. It doesn’t matter if it’s a jumper or a drive. Any time the ball goes through the basket, and it’s going through consistently, it’s demoralizing for any opponent.
For me, the strike zone has always been, If it’s something I can drive, it’s most likely a strike. I feel like if it’s a ball I really can’t do much with, it’s most likely a ball. So that’s just always been my approach.
I remember playing football dressed in peculiar costumes with some friends in France and laughing so hard we couldn’t even stand up, let alone kick the ball.
My aunt looked like Lucille Ball, and everything she touched was beautiful and elegant. But I was intelligent enough to understand I would never be like her.
When you know that batting will be tough, that the ball might move around and your technique will be tested, you have to make sure that you don’t give the bowlers any more advantages.
But, at the moment, when I step on the pitch, when I have the ball I know it’s mine. It’s just a feeling.
They say some of my stars drink whiskey, but I have found that ones who drink milkshakes don’t win many ball games.
I bordered on great in dodge ball.
Style is not a reward for the skinny. It’s not, ‘iI I’m rich, thin and young.’ You may not like your size, but then don’t invest in leather leggings. Let yourself want the expensive bag and really love it and show it off and have a ball with it.
Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.
The truth is I like the style of playing the ball out and hitting long passes.
The first good player I watched as a kid was Joe DiMaggio, and that was like ballet. Since then, I played sandlot and college ball and came to understand how difficult it can be.
While all the other kids were out playing ball and stuff, I used to stay in my room and imagine that there was a camera in the wall. And I used to really believe that I was putting on a television show and that it was going out to somewhere in the world.
I love my job. I come every day having a ball.
When he hit a ground ball to you, you knew you had to make a good throw because he was going to be running.
You know I used to sit there and I’d go outside and play ball and everything, but now in my free time I just kind of lay back and relax because this atmosphere is so busy and stressful, so anytime I can sleep, you’d best believe I’m sleepin’.
It’s a tremendous responsibility to be direct descendants of the prophet Muhammad. This family has had the burden of leadership on its shoulders for 1,400 years. I’m not going to drop the ball on my shift.
People are talking of his susceptibility to the rising delivery, but let me tell you that when you are out of form, every ball looks like a hand grenade.
The true harbinger of spring is not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of the bat on the ball.
To act with a tennis ball and imagine it’s a tentacle, or if you’re in some kind of wilderness film and you go, ‘Okay, we can’t have a grizzly bear here, but imagine when you step over the rock there there’s a grizzly bear.’ I don’t know. They’re tough moments.
I’m just generally hugely frustrated, I’m a very, very frustrated man. I’m just a ball of pent-up frustration.
We in the Negro leagues felt like we were contributing something to baseball, too, when we were playing. We played with a round ball, and we played with a round bat. And we wore baseball uniforms, and we thought that we were making a contribution to baseball. We loved the game, and we liked to play it.
Maybe I was born to play ball. Maybe I truly was.
I like the ball in a big game. I’m not afraid to take it.
My ex-husband and I, even though we’re not together, we are 100 percent together in raising our kid. We communicate a lot and where I drop the ball and need him to pick it up or vice versa, he’s there.
Even when I’m training alone, I always prefer doing soccer-related stuff. On my own, I’ll run through cones or do some shooting exercises or pass the ball against the wall.
I was the kid who always liked to take the ball down to the school even in my free time, kick it against the wall, juggle it in the front yard and so it was kind of a perpetual state of playing soccer for me.
I always tried to hit the ball back through the box because that is the largest unprotected area.
Too much money at a young age, it just takes your eye off the ball. And you’re not as hungry as players used to be. You think you’ve made it before you’ve done anything.
God has already done everything He’s going to do. The ball is now in your court. If you want success, if you want wisdom, if you want to be prosperous and healthy, you’re going to have to do more than meditate and believe; you must boldly declare words of faith and victory over yourself and your family.
I don’t know if it’s a movement, but the only thing new that’s happening is that I think music and art and video and fashion are all kind of thrown into one big ball that’s on television, and people see that all the time – you see a fusion of all those things.
I like teams to control and dominate the ball so the players are hungry for the ball.
For the baby boomer generation, a home is now seen not as the cornerstone of advancement but a ball and chain, restricting their ability and their mobility to move and seek out a job at another location.
When handling the ball, I always would look for daylight, wherever there was daylight.
Even as a pro, I still get a lot of advice from friends and family, like ‘maybe you should shoot the ball more often,’ ‘you have to look for yourself more’ and other things like that.
When you’re wide, you’re taught to try and get in at the far post so the ball doesn’t go straight across, but from that central position, you can use your instinct where to go.
Counter-pressing is a very important topic. Putting pressure onto opponents almost every single minute so we can win the ball… but that is only one thing; we need to find a good balance between ball possession and attacking moments.
I could always hit. I learned to hit with a broomstick and a ball of tape and I could always get that bat on the ball.
My father made me who I am. He gave me a basketball and told me to play with the ball, sleep with the ball, dream with the ball. Just don’t take it to school. I used it as a pillow, and it never gave me a stiff neck.
