Quotes from John Barnes

But I'd been raised pure Ohio: the Zeroth Commandment was Thou Shalt Not Be Any Trouble to Anybody Ever.

I've got ten thousand ducks quacking and waddling, with one deluded chicken that thinks it's a duck in the middle. I think it's a flock of ducks; Cam thinks it's a malign conspiracy of chickens.

they only trusted the wisdom of people brighter and more worldly than themselves when it was expressed in the vocabulary and style of rural idiots. In his guise as Brazenydol, he had once had a contract with DARPA to teach a team of physicists the basic terminology of tractor pulls so that they could give an acceptable explanation of omniwavelength stealth to a Congressional committee that didn't understand tractor pulls, either.

Going into the Republican Party National Convention, in all objective truth, our non?winning front?runners are the sorriest collection of stuffed shirts, empty suits, self?gratulatory ignorami, and outright wig?flipped ding?dongs in the history of the Republic.

Amatus waited a long time, but at last he broke the silence. "There is much I don't understand." "That will never change," Mortis said decisively. "Except that what you don't understand will change.

In the light of the crappy little lamp, all I was looking at was a frizzy mop of blonde hair and a bare back with one big angry red patch on it, but Jesus fucking God she was beautiful, and if you don't understand that, I'm sorry for you.

We all have preconceptions of people based on what we have been told about them and their race and ethnicity.

I'm quite laid-back but some people say I'm unemotional. I don't get carried away with success and similarly I don't get depressed when something bad happens. I didn't take it personally when rival fans threw banana skins at me when I was playing for Liverpool. I can't control 50,000 idiots shouting at me, so why would it bother me?

Yes, you have people shouting racist abuse and throwing bananas on the field, and there are issues regarding the number of black coaches and managers in the game, but which other industry allows a young black boy the exact same opportunity as a young white boy?

White players always said to me: 'You can call me 'a white so and so,' I don't mind.' But that's because society has indoctrinated us over the past 400 years to think that that's like saying 'you handsome so and so.'

I would have loved to have been Henry VIII; I would have been big and fat and no one would have cared.

Yes, my clothes don't reflect my personality at all. Because I'm a very straightforward and serious person. My clothes are much flasher than I am. Yeh. Yeh, yeh. It's a good contrast. I don't think your clothes should reflect your personality... keep people on their toes.

My dad came from Trinidad to Jamaica when he was 19. He had to go to Jamaica to join the British regiment, where it was based. After Sandhurst, he returned to the Caribbean as a junior lieutenant, based in Jamaica. He met my mum and became a Jamaican citizen.

My mother made me believe in reincarnation, in karma. If I live a good life, I believe I will be reincarnated as a higher being. If I live a bad life, I believe I will be reincarnated as a lower being.

Generally speaking, ego isn't a good thing. Humility is the most important quality in a human being.

I think everyone always has time to suffer.

I remember when I was 13 or 14 friends coming over and my father telling them the benefits of joining the army. But he knew that army life wasn't for me. I was a little bit too laid back and lackadaisical and ill-disciplined.

You love football because of the game, not because of some idiot who is going to shout at your from across the street.

Why should racism go away when we are not tackling it in the right way? We are influenced by what we see in the world and what we see in the world is certain people being considered more worthy than others - and we continue to see that.

When you talk about kicking racism out of football, people automatically assume you are talking about on the terraces and on the football field. But all racists have to do is keep their mouth shut for 90 minutes and they're fine.

I think Hazard influences the team so much that anywhere he goes you have to give him the ball.

Yes, I went through overt racism as a footballer in the 80s and early 90s but that was, or is, nothing compared to what the average black person in the inner cities of England goes through every day.

When you score a goal by dribbling you don't remember it because it is instinctive.

There is no right or wrong way of playing football.