Ironically, I find it harder to get a foothold in Australia than I do in the U.S. When I was in Australia, I struggled. It can be a bit of a closed shop; it can be hard for a newcomer to break in, whereas in the U.S., it has much more of an open-door policy, and they will give anyone a shot.
That's the thing about this game -- you get a little monkey on your back. You go 0-for-3, you go 0-for-6, pretty soon you start pressing. You keep trying a little harder, and the harder you try, the worse it gets. So, anytime you can break out of it by getting a base hit, it feeds confidence.
You don't get rich, you don't often have much fun. Sometimes you get beaten up or shot at or tossed into the jail house. Once in a long while you get dead. Every other month you decide to give it up and find some sensible occupation while you can still walk without shaking your head. Then the door buzzer rings and you open the inner door to the waiting room and there stands a new face with a new problem, a new load of grief, and a small piece of money.
What I meant by that is, any time you have adversity, now you've got a chance to see all of these guys play every game the rest of the way like it's a playoff game. What you want guys to do when there's adversity is to play harder and play better, and that's when you see what kind of guys you have in your locker room.
I think it makes the game much easier to play once you have a good cohesion off the court. I think that's big because you come into a locker room at the NBA level, there's so much emotion, so much pride in the locker room.
When people keep repeating
That you'll never fall in love
When everybody keeps retreating
But you can't seem to get enough
Let my love open the door
Let my love open the door
Let my love open the door
To your heart.
By the mercy of Allah Paradise has eight doors one of those is the door of repentance, child. All the others are sometimes open, sometimes shut, but the door of repentance is never closed. Come seize the opportunity: the door is open; carry your baggage there at once.
Once I'm already in my room, I still have to open a door to get into my bed. It's like a giant box. It's like the boy in a bubble.
That's what I am trying to be, just trying to affect the game any way possible, rebounding, getting a block, or trying to get a stop even when your shot isn't falling, because, at the end of the day, all that matters is whether you win or lose.
Every day I go to my study and sit at my desk and put the computer on. At that moment, I have to open the door. It's a big, heavy door. You have to go into the Other Room. Metaphorically, of course. And you have to come back to this side of the room. And you have to shut the door.
Let him treat you like a lady and open the car door for you. If he doesn't automatically open the door for you, stand by the darn thing and don't get into the vehicle until he realises he needs to get hid behind out of the driver's seat and come round and open the car door for you. That's his job!
I'd say it's harder to play with an acoustic guitar strapped over your shoulder for a few hundred people than it is to play in front of thousands with an entire bombastic band behind you. After all these years, I still get nervous in front of people. I can't help it.
When your children arrive, the best you can hope for is that they break open everything about you. Your mind floods with oxygen. Your heart becomes a room with wide-open windows. You laugh hard every day.
It seems like I always had to work harder than other people. Those nights when everybody else is asleep, and you sit in your room trying to play scales.
I'd say it's harder to play with an acoustic guitar strapped over your shoulder for a few hundred people than it is to play in front of thousands with an entire bombastic band behind you.
The N.B.A. is not an easy job. As you get older, you play this game for 82 games a year, and you play 11 or 12 years, your body tends to break down.