Top 113 Quotes & Sayings by John Barnes - Page 2

I think the only thing you should be judged on is your performance in whatever field you happen to be in.

There are lots of different ways of playing football. It depends on how tall you are, what position you're in.

How many black people are there in the higher echelons of any industry? We can talk about journalism, we can talk about politics. So why should football be any different?

I am no different from a lot of people. I am concerned for the future of my children and concerned for the future of all children.

I felt I had to take the Celtic opportunity. You quickly learn that any managerial vacancy attracts up to 60 or 70 applicants, so you need a good reason to turn a job down. A start is a start.

Until we change our perception of a BAME person's capabilities, in all walks of life, we will be given less opportunities and less time to succeed.

Just passing laws saying you are not allowed to be racist won't work. You need an educational system in place.

Why should racism go away when we are not tackling it in the right way? We are influenced by what we see in the world and what we see in the world is certain people being considered more worthy than others - and we continue to see that.

I don't differentiate between racism in football to racism in life so, therefore, as a football manager I knew that I would get racist abuse.

If you are black then you have to be better than your white counterpart to be equal. That's life.

The racism I am really interested in stamping out is in everyday life. Joe Bloggs, who nobody knows, walks down the street and gets racially abused. He goes into a shop and people think he is going to steal something. He cannot get a job.

There is no right or wrong way of playing football.

I'm desperate to work in football. I could make a lot more money doing other things but this is what I want to do.

When you talk about kicking racism out of football, people automatically assume you are talking about on the terraces and on the football field. But all racists have to do is keep their mouth shut for 90 minutes and they're fine.

If you want to consider yourself one of the best teams, you need to be as close to the top as possible.

Football is all about scoring goals.

Normally when you look at the Ballon d'Or winners, they're either attacking midfield players or centre-forwards. They are goalscorers and eye-catching players.

For a team like Brighton, just being in the Premier League is important. That is the name of the game.

New managers have to come from somewhere, everyone has to be a learner at some point.

If you believe you always have to sign players and the players start to believe that, that's when you lose matches.

My mother made me believe in reincarnation, in karma. If I live a good life, I believe I will be reincarnated as a higher being. If I live a bad life, I believe I will be reincarnated as a lower being.

Because I have experienced a prosperous, healthy and happy existence, I must have been a decent person in a past life.

If you are forced to give someone an opportunity when you don't want to, that's going to turn you even more against it.

I don't see why black should be a negative and it's not negative. The people perpetrating that particular thought are wrong.

I moved into midfield because I ruptured my Achilles tendon and couldn't run anymore - it's not what I wanted to do, it's what I had to do!

Once you have players you like and a good enough squad there's no need to spend money.

There wasn't a game in the Eighties when you didn't get racial abuse as a black player.

You have to give 100 per cent in every game and you cannot give more than 100 per cent.

Just by saying it is wrong to be racist and saying we are going to arrest people and kick them out of stadiums does not stop them being racist.

White players always said to me: 'You can call me 'a white so and so,' I don't mind.' But that's because society has indoctrinated us over the past 400 years to think that that's like saying 'you handsome so and so.'

Until we get rid of racial bias, sexism, homophobia in society, it will exist in all walks of society.

I don't have to manage a big club. That won't fulfil me. I will get more satisfaction from the work that I put in than where I am.

We have to look at it holistically and as a whole and say let us tackle racism or discrimination in life. Then you can look to get rid of it in football.

If Arsene Wenger came down to League Two he would have to adapt, he couldn't work in the same way he works at Arsenal.

Societies go backwards sometimes.

I'm a big believer in fate.

Top managers, like Pochettino, Klopp and Guardiola don't make excuses.

Race, for me, should be social and cultural, rather than the colour of your skin. Anton Ferdinand would have more in common with John Terry than he does with some West African from Nigeria. John Terry will have more in common with Anton Ferdinand than a Slav from Eastern Europe who happens to be white.

We have to deconstruct the idea of racial superiority. We have had it for hundreds of years so it is not going to happen overnight but we have to tackle it in the right way.

In the 1970s people were afraid to call me black because they thought it was an insult. They would say 'coloured.' Now it has gone full circle. It's not an issue. The intention is the most important thing.

Marti wasn't the type to give up without a fight, especially not if she was very afraid - some people are like that. They lean into the fear.

Pain only matters when it happens to someone important.

... once you were in, they put a note in your file that said you were in therapy, and all your teachers saw that file. They might as well have tattooed CRAZY on your forehead. The next year every teacher would be watching you for the first weird thing you did—and has there ever been a kid who never does anything an adult considers weird?

If Glenn Hoddle had been any other nationality, he would have had 70 or 80 caps for England.

There's a rule or something that if a girl can crack you up, you have to do what she says.

This is not the way these tales end," Calliope said firmly. "This is not the way that things end when they get to be tales," Amatus said, "but since ours is not yet told, we cannot count on it. There were a hundred dead princes on the thorns outside Sleeping Beauty's castle, and I'm sure many of them were splendid fellows.

You know, when someone hurts my feelings, somehow it does not comfort me to know that it was deliberate... On the other hand, knowing that someone else thinks they are assholes helps a great deal." "I think that's some kind of rule for the universe.

Useless people are not improved by giving them the impression that they are useful.

Can I ask you something personal?” Six inches but I tell everyone eight.

I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Which is not an easy thing for a teacher to admit to.

I think everyone always has time to suffer.

If you look at the last decade of global temperature, it's not increasing.

I would like to lose some of the weight that I have put on since I stopped playing football.