Gale Sayers Quotes

"I learned that if you want to make it bad enough, no matter how bad it is, you can make it."

"When I had my injury, I had gotten hit, and it hurt like hell."

"You need somebody just to say, 'Hey, I'm here for you. Do you need anything?' If you can get somebody like that, you can make it, no question about it. You can make it."

"You must prepare to quit, and they should start doing that from day one because the average life of a pro-football player is only three and a half years. It's not five. It's not seven. It's not 10."

"I learned through his death that, hey, life is short. You think you're going to live to be 75 years of age, and Brian proved that you're not going to live that long."

"I don't care to be remembered as the man who scored six touchdowns in a game. I want to be remembered as a winner in life."

"You have to prepare to quit, and this is what I did. I prepared to quit, so on the day that came when I had to walk away from the game, I walked away and didn't look back."

"What happens also is that a lot of those people and reporters who vote for Hall of Famers, some of the people who were around when Ray Guy was around, are deceased. And some of the reporters don't remember Ray Guy. He should have been in the Hall of Fame 15 years ago."

"I learned more of how to appreciate what I had then - my family, my kids, the talent that God gives you - because He can take it away at any time. He took it away from Brian through death. He took it away from me through my knees."

"This is not a football film. It's about two individuals - two good friends telling their story."

"We had no preconceived ideas. We were on this football team to go out and win ballgames and try to win a championship, that's all. To Brian and me, it was no big deal."

"Our young people look up to us. Let us not let them down. Our young people need us. Saving them will make heroes of us all."

"People think I played 10 years. I only played 68 games."

"I had a career that was very short, but it had a lot of thrills."

"I was playing in the league when Ray Guy was playing in the league. He was the best kicker I've ever seen. He could bullet that ball 70 yards."

"Halas didn't believe in starting rookies."

"I know with my knee injury, I didn't have the type of medical technology we have today. If I could've had what we had now, I probably could've been back out in three months. I didn't have that."

"We must stop the trend of closing schools and building prisons."

"We have about 4 million people who have voted for who they want to see in the Hall of Fame. There are some people they put down that are pretty good players. You have Ray Guy, Jim Plunkett, Lester Hayes and Donnie Shell."

"I ran back punt returns and kickoff returns, and I played a pretty good game."

"There are some people that probably should be in the Hall of Fame, but they're not for some reason."

"My knee was torn up. I tore every ligament in my knee. It was a very, very bad injury. I had to do what the doctors told me to do, and I did that. The next year, I came back and led the league in rushing."

"Athletes as role models and heroes is a hoax, a sick hoax. The men and women who are fighting in Iraq, they are the true heroes."

"There comes a time when you have to stand up and be counted."

"Jay Cutler, he's a fine quarterback, but I think at times he gets a little nicked up."

"Remember that. I ran from the line of scrimmage."