Quotes from Shannon Sharpe

In our culture, when the parents are having a tough time, the grandparents take care of the kids.

I love the NFL. Everything that I really have is because of the NFL... but every idea that the NFL pitched is not a great idea.

You have to do more than the coaches ask you, or you'll never be a great player in this league.

To say someone is the greatest, I just don't want championships to define that greatness. Because under that theory, Robert Horry is one of the five or six best basketball players ever - he has seven championship rings. We know that not to be true.

The only thing I do is say what everyone else is thinking but doesn't have the guts to say.

I had a speech class in elementary school. And you know how teachers, when a kid is struggling to pronounce a word, used to lead him and say, 'Johnny, sounds like... ? Johnny, sounds like... ?' I said out loud, 'Sounds like Johnny can't read.' Teacher told me to leave the room.

You can tell the truth, but sometimes you can't always be in your face with it. I found a way to tell the truth and put it in a nice, neat package for people to receive it. A lot of times, you have to put it in a nice, neat box with a bow tie, and when they open it, it's the truth. I think people respect that.

Peyton Manning is funny, hence the 'Saturday Night Live'; you see him in his commercials. He's funny.

My grandma told me, don't get into trouble. I know how hard she worked to take care of her own nine kids and my mama's three. And I just never wanted to hurt her. I never wanted to do something that would embarrass her.

Some people think all I did was trash talk. But ask my teammates, coaches - they saw how hard I worked, how hard I prepared.

A lot of people mistake habit for hard work. Doing something over and over again is not working hard.

You can get in front of the media and say, 'Yeah, I'm working hard.' You can't do it in front of those other 52 guys in the locker room. You can't fool your teammates, because they see you. They see you every day, and they see you more than your family sees you.

I tell people, when I train, I don't do a Hansel and Gretel workout. I don't drop breadcrumbs. I saved nothing for the trip home.

I've got my bell rung, and when I first came in the league, the term wasn't 'concussion,' it was 'getting dinged' or 'had your bell rung.' So I had my bell rung a few times.

When someone keeps doing something, you say that that isn't him, he is just making some bad decisions. Sometimes those decisions reflect the person.

The guys that are serious serious about football - your Peyton Mannings, your Tom Bradys - I'm not saying don't advertise or do endorsements dollars. But there's a time and a place for everything.

There's not a throw that Tom Brady can make that Aaron Rodgers can't, but there are several throws that Aaron Rodgers can make that Tom Brady only dreams of making.

I was born in the 1960s. I came up in the 1970s. I know how race relations were. The thing is, I want to advance the ball and never return to those days again. I want to keep the topic going. I'm going to discuss it. And we're going to make America better. It's my job as a citizen, and I demand it.

Most people, they're dug in. 'Michael Jordan is the best player, and there's nothing LeBron can do.' A lot of people dug in that LeBron is whiny and he complains, he jumped teams, he wants all the best players. And once you have your mind made up on a particular topic, there's no moving you off of that.

We have never, ever, in the history of football seen a guy that possesses what Aaron Rodgers possesses. Nobody, no quarterback in history, has the touch, the accuracy, the ability to throw the ball moving left or right, throw the ball from the pocket, throw the ball from different plains.

In my 14 years, catching 200 yards or scoring 3 touchdowns in a game, breaking a record - none of those compared to winning the Super Bowl for the first time.

The thing you can't measure is someone's heart, someone's desire. You can measure a 40, his vertical, his bench press, and that might let you know things like, yeah, he can jump high. But desire, his dedication, his determination, that's something you can't measure. That's something you can't measure about Rod Smith.

I'm just a skinny kid from Glennville, Georgia - 3,500 people, two traffic lights - going to the Hall of Fame.

People say, 'Since you got rich and famous, you've become insufferable.' I say, 'That's not true. I've always been insufferable.'