Quotes from Jim Valvano

I asked a ref if he could give me a technical foul for thinking bad things about him. He said, of course not. I said, well, I think you stink. And he gave me a technical. You can't trust em.

Know where you have been, where you are now and where you want to be

Time is very precious to me. I don't know how much I have left and I have some things that I would like to say. Hopefully, at the end, I will have said something that will be important to other people too.

You need to have a dream, a goal, and you must be willing to work hard.

Coaches are basically schizophrenic. We are pessimistic to the press and among fellow coaches, but to our team, we are the eternal optimists.

My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.

I talked about my family, my family's so important.

How do you go from where you are to where you want to be? I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life. You have to have a dream, a goal, and you have to be willing to work for it.

To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special.