Quotes About Ambition

If you're a talented player, and you're 20 years old, you should be playing in the UEFA Champions League or in the elite European teams like AC Milan, Juventus, or Chelsea.

Instead of being on teams at school, I was preparing for auditions.

I've seen teams spend £150 million and get nowhere near the Champions League. It has taken Manchester City a billion to get there. There are no guarantees.

You want to play in the best stadiums against the best players - your Real Madrid's and Barcelona's - you want to play those teams.

At 17, I went to Stanford University to study engineering. My time was occupied with the required reading and the extracurricular duties of managing the baseball and football teams and earning my way.

People talk about you won four national championships. Well, I feel like we've had good enough teams to win eight. So I feel like we failed four times. I feel like I failed four times.

I want to play a big role on special teams, too.

Being passed up by teams because of my size made me hungry. I've seen a lot of first-round guys who come in and never really do nothing because they may not appreciate the opportunity because everything has been given to them. I think guys who come from the bottom understand how hard it is, so they appreciate the opportunities more.

I wanted to be part of the Houston Astros when they become a good team. That was my motivation... I never had in my mind the idea of playing with any other teams.

I'm very proud with how my story has gone. I've played for some very big teams, and it is not normal how I got there. It is a dream for every player to have this kind of career, so I am very proud of this.

Of course it's normal for people to say, 'Yeah, this player changed teams because of the money.' That could be the case sometimes, but after a certain level of success? No.

Every player wants to play on the biggest stages in football. I have played for big teams. I know what it takes.

If you want to be the best team in the world, you've got to beat the best teams.

If you excel, there will always be teams interested in signing the biggest players.

Don't matter if I am playing on special teams, don't matter if I am playing linebacker: I want to be the best at what I am doing.

The big teams are about the Champions League.

Of course I want to be the best in the world; I want to play against big teams and against big stars.

If you want to be in the top teams, you know you have competition in your place.

I think Japanese people like teamwork. Sometimes they don't try to be No. 1 or different to other people. That can be good but sometimes it means you don't get a dream or a strong goal.

Coming up in this country, I've seen it so many times. When you see somebody rising you want to tear them down because you feel inadequate and you want to call it humble.

People like to tear you down. People are always going to take shots. You've just got to go for it.

You think about when I went to Miami. I played as a freshman, I go in and compete to be a starter, I tear my ACL. Come back, I start, I get off to a good couple of games and I get hurt again. You hear everybody saying, 'Oh, he's done.' I get drafted in the third round. People still said I got drafted too high, saying I'll only play three years.

In some ways the ACL tear was a blessing. I had hesitated to return to elite gymnastics after the 2008 Olympics. I told myself I had already accomplished so much, and the road was just going to get harder if I continued.

It feels weird to say there's more to me than that, like I'm being overdramatic, and a tear rolls down my cheek. But, no - I do like I feel like there's more to me than just baseball.