Quotes About Legacy

Injuries weren't the reason why I retired. I retired on my own terms.

You weren't born just to live a life and to die; you were born to accomplish something specifically. Matter of fact, success is making it to the end of your purpose; that is success... Success is not just existing. Success is making it to the end of why you were born.

Why is Poroshenko going for a second term? So that he doesn't get a first.

My parents always threw everything out, gave everything away. I'm surprised they never threw me away. That's why I've always kept my children's things. My parents had no feelings for belongings.

I went to jail 44 times. I've been beaten and left for dead on the side of the road fighting for freedom... Yet Rosa Parks is better known in history than Ralph David Abernathy. Why is that?

Being compared to Freddie Mercury is something I've come to terms with. I don't know that I'll ever successfully avoid the comparisons, as much as I might want to. Why bother, though? People hear what they want to hear because it makes them feel good and gives them a momentary pause from a loss rock and roll has felt for years.

Less than 1 percent of ancient Egypt has been discovered and excavated. With population pressures, urbanization, and modernization encroaching, we're in a race against time. Why not use the most advanced tools we have to map, quantify, and protect our past?

I didn't really know what to expect, but I thought there aren't a lot of rap groups that can say they have a documentary done about them, so my attitude was like, 'Shoot, why not?' I'm sure there are a lot of people that would like to take our place. I felt like we should all embrace it.

I'm being compared to the impossible. I never saw Mays, Aaron or Clemente play. What about the people I face every day? Tim Raines is the best? Mattingly is the best? Why not compare me to my peers?

With population pressures, urbanization, and modernization encroaching, we're in a race against time. Why not use the most advanced tools we have to map, quantify, and protect our past?

Why does a state last a thousand years? Why not 999? Why not a thousand and one? What are the events that finally bring the whole thing down? That is what I am asking.

At 90, I'm still working a couple of dates a month. My mind is very sharp on the stage, so why not? This may sound corny, but I do it because people - young and old - still come to see me, and they're very enthusiastic about my work. They treat me like the Godfather.

Five or 10 years from now, people are going to be sitting around going, 'Wasn't there a show about four fat guys in a pawn shop?' And I am sitting on this really nice piece of property on Las Vegas Boulevard. Why not?

I want to become one of the greatest managers that has ever lived. Why not? If it doesn't happen, then I've given everything, and I'd be proud of whatever I'm able to achieve.

I do think I retired too soon. I just felt at that particular time in 2002, after winning a fifth world title belt, why not be one of the smart ones in boxing and get out.

Everybody asks me, 'Lee when did you know it was time to retire?' I said, 'when they quit asking me to coach.' After the Orlando Renegades, not many people were busting down my doors to coach, so why not do something else.

Other great fighters like Sugar Ray Leonard and Muhammad Ali have fallen to the canvas. Why not Julio Cesar Chavez?

I keep saying, the older I get, the younger my audience gets. Because 'Wicked' and 'Rent' and 'Glee,' each one was a young audience, so it's a great thing to have, so then you know that as they get older and have kids, they'll maybe still buy tickets to my shows when I'm 80 and in Vegas!

I grew up with these amazing shows, like 'Les Mis,' 'Phantom,' 'Joseph,' 'Wicked,' and if I ever had the chance to work with an established composer on a new piece, that would be a real honour.

When I went to the Pro Bowl, I went as a tight end. When I made the All Pro team, I made it as a tight end. When they introduced us and I ran out of the tunnel, they introduced me as a tight end. So how is that possible that now that my career is over, they say, 'Well, he put up stats like a wide receiver?' It's not my fault I was ahead of my time.

I am more into the old school guy than I am with the new school guys. I came in young and I had to pay my dues to be considered a vet. To be able to play for over 10 years at wide receiver, that's why I like looking at the older guys like Larry Fitzgerald, Teddy Ginn Jr., Brian Hartline. That's what I'm about.

To this day I get mail from women who say, I went to law school because of your song. But I would hate to think out of the wide spectrum of things I have done in my career, that's all I would be remembered for.

My grandmother was very fierce and gruff. She was quite small, but she was very wide.

I would love to play for Leonard Hamilton and follow in the footsteps of my father at Florida State, where he played wide receiver and after a great career as a Seminole was drafted into the NFL.