My mom used to keep all her Christmas cards in a basket bedecked with red ribbon, and I loved to look at them all and read all the letters.

My father used to always give me a basketball, a skate board, and a bike every Christmas. That's all I wanted every year.

My parents were kind of over protective people. Me and my sister had to play in the backyard all the time. They bought us bikes for Christmas but wouldn't let us ride in the street, we had to ride in the backyard. Another Christmas, my dad got me a basketball hoop and put it in the middle of the lawn! You can't dribble on grass.

I worked every day - Christmas Eve, birthdays - trying to become a great basketball player. Everywhere I went, I had a basketball.

We can have no progress without change, whether it be basketball or anything else.

In college I never realized the opportunities available to a pro athlete. I've been given the chance to meet all kinds of people, to travel and expand my financial capabilities, to get ideas and learn about life, to create a world apart from basketball.

Every year's going to be a what-if. That's the game of basketball. What if a guy turns his ankle? What if a guy gets in a car wreck coming to the arena? There are so many different aspects that could happen that nobody knows. Only the man upstairs knows.

My sporting hero was Drazen Petrovic, the NBA basketball player, who was killed in a car accident in 1993. He was a good friend, an unbelievable player, and I dedicated my Wimbledon win to him.

If 'Chicago Fire' goes for a long run, maybe I'll look for a place, but in my line of work, you can't throw your eggs into one basket because you might have to move. I'm not big on 'things,' though, so I don't own TVs, couches or cars because I wouldn't know where to put them.

The majority of my interactions with police were not good. There were a few good ones who were actually protecting the community. But then you have ones from the Valley. They never met me in their life, but since I'm a kid in basketball shorts and a white T-shirt, they wanna slam me on the hood of the car. Sixteen years old.

Stephen A. Smith is the hardest-working man in sports show business. The ubiquitous basketball pundit appears on ESPN about 10 times a day as a regular on the show 'NBA Fastbreak,' a guest commentator on 'Sports Center,' and a pundit on 'ESPNEWS.'

And I want to do it the right way, like everybody else, not just a famous figurehead that gets a job because he is a famous basketball player. I want to really learn the business.

It's OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.

If I went out to play basketball with other kids, when I came home I'd shower and go right back to the computer again. If there was a birthday party or a family activity, I would take my laptop and spend the whole day there.

The waste basket is the writer's best friend.

Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.

I just put my anger and resentment into basketball. Even the stuff from my childhood.

I've chosen my wedding ring large and heavy to continue forever. But exactly because of that all the time that Dave and I have an argument I feel it like handcuffs, and on anger time I throw it in a basket. Poor Dave, he bought me three wedding rings already!

Growing up, I looked up to major league baseball players, and now these young women have amazing, incredible women all across the board, from swimming to gymnastics to softball to basketball. It is incredible how far women have come and women in sports have come.

I feel like LeBron James is an amazing basketball player, but he's also a community person.

I was about 14, and my friend's stepdad asked me to do a 10K with him because his son - who was more into basketball - didn't want to. It was amazing, and I still remember the time I got: 48:23.

The lemons life gave me are stored in a basket. Judgmental people provoke me to bake them into a whipped pie of sugary spite. I gladly serve it up to them...in an effort to silence their meringue pie hole from complaining.

Behold, the fool saith, "Put not all thine eggs in the one basket" - which is but a matter of saying, "Scatter your money and your attention"; but the wise man saith, "Pull all your eggs in the one basket and - WATCH THAT BASKET." - Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

X is for X-mas Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket, then all your Christmases can come at once!