Top 147 Quotes & Sayings by Gary Lineker - Page 2

We're all concerned about sports rights being so expensive. Obviously, we are funded by the licence fee payers, so it's not always easy to compete with those who can get greater revenue.

Not many players would turn down a chance to play for Real Madrid and Barcelona, as they're right at the top the tree in terms of football.

The treatment by some towards these young refugees is hideously racist and utterly heartless. What's happening to our country?

The E.U. has its weaknesses, but it's been pretty good for us, and it's been pretty good for Europe, and it's kept peace.

I'm in good shape.

You cannot get involved in debate on 'MOTD'. You can do it on Sky because they've got hours and hours. We've got a couple of minutes. It's a very disciplined show. Our primary purpose is to show the action, and the analysis is very secondary. We have lots of people who would prefer no analysis. We have lots of people who would prefer more analysis.

As footballers, you just grow up with people from different backgrounds and different colors of skin.

I remember Nayim at Tottenham dived all over the place, and we used to say to him, 'What are you doing?' You do talk about it.

We are in the the entertainment business, and we all know if you are top of the tree, you get big money.

What you learn is that you can't please everyone all the time.

I don't think there was a definite day, but it would have been around my mid-20s. I was always interested in the media side of things. When we travelled with England away, or to World Cups, I used to sit with journos while they wrote their copy.

Diving is a really, really difficult one because a player is the only one who genuinely knows whether they have dived. You can look at it at 40 different angles and not know. And you can just fall over, too.

On TV, if you fluff your lines, nobody gives a toss. But if you fluff a penalty in the World Cup, well - we all know how much that matters.

Football's the big cheese, if you like. It's easy to have a swipe. There's a lot of footballers, and when they fall foul, they become big news.

We are living in difficult times. There are a lot of people out of work - am I going to stand there and whinge? No, because I am lucky to have such a wonderful job.

The competitive nature of most mums and dads is astounding. The fear they instil in our promising but sensitive Johnny is utterly depressing. We need a parental cultural revolution.

That's what being a footballer is, really: you train at this time, you finish at that time, then you do that, then you go home, then you're not allowed out, then you do this... there comes a point in your career - about thirty, thirty-one - when you get a bit sick of being screamed at.

There is Twitter outrage at everything. Be it a pair of trousers or a short skirt, somebody, somewhere, will not like it.

Kids are learning to play. That's why we're seeing an emergence. That's why we're seeing the Under-17s and Under-20s doing better in international football.

Feel ashamed of my generation. We've let down our children and their children.

I sort of fall apart in terms of stamina after about 25 minutes!

This whole science thing of working out if players are a little bit tired just gives you an excuse to leave them out.

Are people like Tom Cruise in touch with their public? I doubt it. Footballers are more like the rock stars of yester-year: they are box office.

It's really hard for kids nowadays: you can get a decent education, but there are no jobs out there. You worry about how they are ever going to afford to live anywhere.

Twitter is an amazing thing; it brings footballers closer to the fans because so many of them are on there. I was cynical about it to begin with, but I have been converted.

Football matters so much to people, and they get very defensive - or angry.

Presenting football is something that I love to do. I'm very fortunate being able to do one of the BBC's flagship shows.

The only way to get to the other end of the pitch is to belt it and then belt it again.

In this country, since footballs made from pigs' bladders were whacked into goals without nets, we've played on full-size pitches. Whatever our age.

Ultimately, if we can develop enough players, the balance of foreign players isn't great, but that's because we're not producing enough players.

In the time I spent with him, Jurgen Klopp was enigmatic, larger than life, and extremely quick-witted. He is quite unique as a football manager in many ways, and that is what makes him so entertaining.

Some players are quite homely, and they don't see themselves going abroad; others would relish the challenge. I can only speak personally, but I always wanted the challenge, and to go and live in a place like Barcelona was great.

If I hadn't have been good enough at football, I'd have been a sports journalist - which is what I do now anyway. Or a cricketer. I might have been a cricketer.

You never know how long a player has left, especially with strikers. Once you turn 30, as a striker, you are usually on the way down, and playing from the age of 16, at such a high level, has to take its toll.

I think the important thing we have to remember about football in this country is that it is very vibrant, and it's very good to watch, not only in the flesh but also on TV, because our stadiums are full.

A couple of defeats, and you are gone - that's the danger of World Cups.

I think medically, football is generally well looked after. There are always checks made. Anything which can be done to make footballers or sportsmen of any area safer has to be encouraged.

When Bob Wilson left the BBC for ITV, I got the 'Football Focus' job, and it went from there. It came completely out of the blue, but the fact I had a high profile certainly helped.

The two centre-backs, Rob Huth and Wes Morgan, are in many ways journeyman pros, but they have that wonderful attitude and never-say-die spirit that has culminated in them being top of the league.

World Cups can be career-defining.

Football is losing its heart and sense of humour.

This whole 'tired footballers' and three-games-a-week thing is an absolute myth.

Most clubs would actually like homegrown players because they're a lot cheaper.

We almost need a revolution in the culture of our thinking about football.

If you are at the top in entertainment, you earn money that you can never justify to ordinary people doing proper jobs. You can't.

In terms of aesthetics, I probably look better than I did when I played.

Personal records are not what football is all about, but as goalscorers, we live and die by figures and numbers because, ultimately, that's how people will judge you.

I generally have a brand of brief on every day.

The possibility that a provincial town could win the League completely bucks the trend.

I've quite often written tweets that I think are across that line, but I just delete them.

I've been in the public eye so long, I can't remember how it was when it was different - from my mid-20s onwards, when my career started to blossom and I became an international, world cups and things.

Looking at the way the game is played, I'm envious of the conditions. We played on some ropey World Cup surfaces. I genuinely never look back and wish I earned the money they do today, but I do think of that element.

People are fed up with the way things are. There is a lot of bitterness out there, a lot of anger about a lack of jobs and concerns for the next generation.

We do not want to alienate supporters.

It's nice to have the power of Twitter to correct things that were incorrect.

In my day, I wasn't the best footballer, but I was the best goalscorer for two or three years.

Must say though, I'm rather chuffed to have been called a 'luvvie'.

In all sports, people get competitive; things happen that shouldn't happen.

I hear it all the time in the street: 'It's the crisp bloke.'

It would be a great adventure for Leicester to be in the Champions League.