Quotes from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

The transition was difficult. It's hard to stop something that you've enjoyed and that has been very rewarding.

My biggest accomplishment has been making a transition from athlete to author.

I want people to understand that I intend to continue living and doing all the things that I love to do up until the end. And the end is by no means rushing up on me.

There's a ball. There's a hoop. You put the ball through the hoop. That's success.

I try to do the right thing at the right time. They may just be little things, but usually they make the difference between winning and losing.

My grandfather and my uncle both died from colorectal cancer, my dad almost died from it and I have the gene for it.

Black people don't have an accurate idea of their history, which has been either suppressed or distorted.

The type of leukemia that I am dealing with is treatable. So if I do what my doctors tell me to do - get my blood checked regularly, take my meds and consult with my doctor and follow any additional instructions he might make - I will be able to maintain my good health and live my life with a minimum of disruptions to my lifestyle.

Basketball is an endurance sport, and you have to learn to control your breath; that's the essence of yoga, too. So, I consciously began using yoga techniques in my practice and playing. I think yoga helped reduce the number and severity of injuries I suffered. As preventative medicine, it's unequaled.

A lot of young players don't really know much about the history of the game and a lot of them are missing out on what the game is all about, especially the whole concept of sportsmanship and teamwork.

Music rhythms are mathematical patterns. When you hear a song and your body starts moving with it, your body is doing math. The kids in their parents' garage practicing to be a band may not realize it, but they're also practicing math.

I'm not comfortable being preachy, but more people need to start spending as much time in the library as they do on the basketball court.

I tell kids to pursue their basketball dreams, but I tell them to not let that be their only dream.

In athletics there's always been a willingness to cheat if it looks like you're not cheating. I think that's just a quirk of human nature.

In a typical history book, black Americans are mentioned in the context of slavery or civil rights. There's so much more to the story.

I hope to be involved in a successful movie script.

When I was a kid, no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. That's a terrible burden.

I have been coaching recently. I coached high school basketball in Arizona, and I hope that more opportunities become available.

Today's youth are told to get rich or die trying and they really shouldn't take that attitude forward with them.

Sports and entertainment are the only places where inner-city kids see themselves being able to succeed. Their intellectual development is something they don't relate to.

I would suggest that teachers show their students concrete examples of the negative effects of the actions that gangsta rappers glorify.

I didn't really seek attention. I just wanted to play the game well and go home.

I was getting hot flashes and sweats on a regular basis. That's not normal, even for my age.

Music is really something that makes people whole.