Quotes from Ben Wallace

It's a great honor to be named to the Eastern Conference All-Star team as a starter. It's great to earn respect from your teammates and coaches, but to also get that same respect from other players around the league and then the fans - that is special.

Once I had the opportunity to get my feet wet and play and enjoy this game, I just wanted to be on the floor at all times.

I met Draymond when he was about nine years old. We talked about basketball. It just making me feel good just knowing that he actually listened and he applied everything I talked about to basketball.

We all feel good to be wanted.

I never thought you could win when you've got five guys on the floor looking for the ball and no one out there doing the little things.

I leave everything on the floor so when I step off the floor I am already wind down. I don't hold anything back.

A lot of people think the hardest thing about this game is making it into this league. As you get older and you accomplish most of your goals - all of your goals - you find out the hardest part of this game is walking away.

My biggest challenger was my mom. Every time I didn't do the right thing, I'd have to see her face.

I have no quit in me.

If I want to be a basketball player and you don't draft me, what am I going to do, quit, or keep going? Knock on the next door, knock on the next door, if one of those open I'm going to go in and display my talent.

When you gel together as a team, you don't have to go out there and try to beat the world by yourself.

If you put in that work and you work hard, you're honest with yourself about it, good things will happen.

If you're not going to put in the effort, your size is not going to take you so far. As long as you go out there and grind and go hard, good things will continue to happen to you.

I played center but if I didn't have to guard guys damn near twice my size every night, I was free to roam around and do a lot more. I could guard the perimeter.

If you dream big and you make it halfway and can find someone else that know the rest of the way you can still get there.

I definitely learned about having a good work ethic from my family. They showed me what it meant to go out and work for something and then how good it felt when you accomplished your goals.

When I left high school, I wanted to go to Auburn, and they said they were going to let me go both ways. And my 'both ways' was 'football and basketball.' And their 'both ways' was 'offense and defense.' So it didn't work out for me.

I played D-end and tight end.

You go out there, you pound your knees for 12 minutes, then you come and sit for 12 minutes, your back gets tight. Then you've got to go back out there for another 12 minutes and then come and sit for 12 minutes, and then maybe at the end of the game your team needs a stop and you can't help your team. It pounds the knees and stiffens up your back.

Everybody knows I'm not on the floor because I'm great scorer or free throw shooter. It's because I'm out there to defend and rebound.

Life is not hard. Life is very simple.

The All-Star Game is about going out and having fun, it's more for the fans. Whatever happens, happens.

Mom was 6-4, 235 herself.

Anytime you got me hitting jump shots, you can't do nothing but feed off me.