Quotes from Rick Pitino

After September 11, I don't think people really believe things like this are all that important.

I don't get into these petty things, Kentucky-Louisville. To me, it's nonsense... There will be people at Kentucky that will have a nervous breakdown if they lose to us... They've got to put the fences up on bridges. There will be people consumed by Louisville.

The other guys just caught lightning in a bottle with a great game.

I'd learned how much happiness money can bring you. Very little.

The only way to get people to like working hard is to motivate them. Today, people must understand why they're working hard. Every individual in an organization is motivated by something different.

You are trying not only to reach your potential but to move beyond it. If you are not in the best shape you can be, these things simply become more difficult to achieve.

All good things have to come to an end, and the male cheerleader has come to an end

When you have a problem, if you tell the truth, the problem becomes part of your past. If you lie, it becomes part of your future.

Avoid cynical and negative people like the plague. They are killers of potential.

I'd tell any coach not to move for money... Stay at your job if you're really happy.

I plan to coach at University of Louisville for as long as I can maintain the passion I have for the game of basketball. I don't want to coach anywhere else. I don't believe in anything else as much as I believe in this university and this state. I want to coach as long as they will have me.

When you build bridges you can keep crossing them.

Humility is the true key to success. Successful people lose their way at times. They often embrace and overindulge from the fruits of success. Humility halts this arrogance and self-indulging trap. Humble people share the credit and wealth, remaining focused and hungry to continue the journey of success.

I ignore the jealous, I ignore the malicious, I ignore the ignorant, and I ignore the paranoid. If the shoe fits anyone, wear it.

What I've found in my life with our children is that often you can give them advice and tell them to eat the right things, stay in shape and wear sunscreen, and they don't really want to listen. But then they hear it from someone else, and they do listen.

Football is only once a week. NASCAR is once a week. Those sports are insanely popular. Horse racing is oversaturated. Unless tracks cut back to three days a week of full fields, a lot of people will really hurt down the road. Horse racing, to survive, has to go to that. Let's face it: Churchill Downs only does well on Derby Week.

Tackle the difficult things first in the morning; make changes in the way you network. Treat everyone with respect and dignity. This stops you from cynicism and negativity. End your day with that same attitude you started. Renew your contract with a day well completed.

Humility is what makes teams great. I've preached it for a long period of time.

Failure is good. It's fertilizer. Everything I've learned about coaching, I've learned from making mistakes.

I'd learned how much happiness money can bring you. Very little.

Lying makes a probem part of the future; truth makes a problem part of the past.

Dreamers are not content with being mediocre.

hubris. It means extreme confidence or arrogance to the point that one loses touch with reality and overestimates one's abilities.

When the stakes are the biggest is when the challenges to focus can be the most difficult and the most costly.