Bill Bradley

Leadership is unlocking people's potential to become better. ”

I always thought the objective of basketball was to get the maximum amount of movement to get the easiest shot, closest to the basket. With the three-point rule, the whole strategy changes, and you make a move and then throw it 30 feet out, where somebody takes a standing jump shot. ”

Look, I have no qualms about having played basketball. The game has done so much for me. Look at the places I've been, for one thing. ”

For much of my career I had no authentic political voice. I had been campaigning all over the country not to change the world or shake up my audiences but to please the roomful of people to whom I was speaking... As a result, my words rarely had the ring of truth to the nonpolitical observer. ”

At the end of the Cold War, the prevailing view in Washington was that the U.S. was strong, and Russia was weak and did not count in a unipolar world. We disregarded Russia's opposition to NATO expansion, the Iraq War, and the U.S.-led military intervention in Serbia for the independence of Kosovo. ”

Kids always ask the most obvious and the most difficult questions. ”

Why do we fully tax some kinds of income from capital, like interest and dividends; partially tax other kinds like capital gains; defer tax on other kinds, like IRAs; and impose no tax at all on still other types of capital income, like interest on municipal bonds? This simply is not rational. These distinctions don't have any inherent logic. ”

Trying to take money out of politics is like trying to take jumping out of basketball. ”

That feeling of being the NBA Champion is really unparalleled, because you're the best in the world. Without question. How many people can say that in any profession? ”

There has never been a great athlete who died not knowing what pain is. ”