I try to be pretty in tune with my body. If you play this game long enough, you're going to wake up and one day your knee is going to hurt or your back is going to hurt.
There's a game out there, and the stakes are high. And the guy who runs it figures the averages all day long and all night long. Once in a while he lets you steal a pot. But if you stay in the game long enough, you've got to lose. And once you've lost there's no way back, no way at all.
You never know how long Federer is going to play, but in my opinion he has at least one or two more grand slams to win. It depends how long he stays motivated. For me, he is the greatest player to ever play the game.
Once you really understand your role... that's why I think actors get lost in a series. Everybody wants to be the quarterback or the game-winning wide receiver. I've been around long enough and done enough stuff to where I don't feel that way. I just want to do what I do as well as possible.
When you play this game long enough, everything is not going to be smooth sailing.
?s long as I've got an audience out there to play for, I'm going to continue to play. I have at least enough people that I can go out on the road for 10, 11 weeks at a time.
You can't do something stupid at any time. If you do, you're going to get technicals or flagrant fouls, or you're going to get kicked out of the game or whatever.
You get into the game and you know you're probably not going to be in there long. It's like, while I'm in here, I better not mess up. That's the completely wrong mentality to have. That works against how I play because how I play is 150 percent, going all out, going crazy.
It's a process of trying to be great. You play this game long enough, you're going to have these bumps in the road and you have to keep fighting.
I'm not going to fight because I mean too much to our team, and I can't afford to be suspended for a game or do something stupid to get me kicked out of a playoff game.
You get kicked around long enough, you become a professor of pain.
Being a writer, writing for a living, is one long persistence game. Everyone wants you to quit. Quite often, you want to quit. You get kicked down. You come up swinging. You keep going. Either you are committed to it, or you aren't.
As long as your eyes aren't going, or you've got some back or neck problems, then you can play this game as long as you're motivated to practise.
If you got up on the bandstand at Minton's and couldn't play, you were not only going to be embarrassed by the people ignoring you or booing you, you might get your ass kicked.
I've lived in L.A. for a long time, and they say, 'If you sit in a barber's shop for long enough, you will get a hair cut.' Well, if you live in Los Angeles for long enough, you're going to get some surgery.
A long time ago, I made a promise to myself: "Okay, you know what? I'm going to play music, and hopefully I'll make enough money that I can go back to school. Once I make enough money to put myself through school, that's what I'm going to do."