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Even when I went to the playground, I never picked the best players. I picked guys with less talent, but who were willing to work hard and had the desire to be great.

Magic Johnson

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Magic Johnson
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: August 14
Actor
Basketball Coach
Basketball Player
Businessperson
Entrepreneur
Film Producer
Financier
Hiv Activist
Motivational Speaker
Lansing
Michigan
Earvin Magic Johnson Jr.
Earvin Johnson
Jr.
Earvin Johnson
Earvin Johnson Jr.
Best
Guys
Hard
Talent
Great
Player
Even
Willing
Playground
Work
Went
Playgrounds
Never
Guy
Picked
Less
Perseverance
Desire
Players

More quotes by Magic Johnson

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You either have to be great or you have to be bad to get a good pick.
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When I first found out I had HIV, I had to find somebody who was living with it, who could help me understand my journey and what I was going to have to deal with day-to-day. I found out that a person named Elizabeth Frazier was living with AIDS at the time, and so I called her up, and she took a meeting with me.
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Any guy who can maintain a positive attitude without much playing time certainly earns my respect.
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My diet is mostly chicken and fish. I make sure I get a lot of vegetables, a lot of fruit. I am a big fruit man, I am a vegetable man anyway. And I also get a lot of rest. That's the key I may be up early, but I'm in bed early too.
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When you are honest and open with young people, they let you in.
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Assists is what Earvin is all about. That's what my whole life has been, assisting others.
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I was around when my father finished the last payment of his house. I remember like it was yesterday. He had worked all those years to own that house and he cried. He was so excited and so happy and I want to see other people get that feeling, too.
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Once Michael gets up there he says, 'Well, maybe I'll just hang up here in the air for a while, just sit back.' Then all of a sudden, he says, 'Well, maybe I'll 360. No I changed my mind. I'll go up on the other side.' He's just incredible.
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The real story is that I had unprotected sex. That's that. That's easy.
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Everyone thought I was going to die like a year later, they didn't know. So I helped educate sports, and then the world, that a man living with HIV can play basketball. He's not going to give it to anybody by playing basketball.
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For me, it always goes back to something I learned in basketball. There's winning and there's losing, and in life you have to know they both will happen. But what's never been acceptable to me is quitting.
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Even as a fierce competitor I try to smile.
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HIV changed my life, but it doesn't keep me from living.
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A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom. Just like right now with the whole mortgage crisis, I want to help people get back into their homes.
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Just celebrate the life you had, not the life you could've had.
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The looks, the stares, the giggles . . . I wanted to show everybody that I could do better and also that I could read.
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God blessed me with two unbelievable parents, and I am just like both of them. I have the smile and charisma of my mother and the big heart of my mom, because she wants to save the world and help the world, so I am just like her.
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Life doesnt stop because something happens to you.
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I wanted to do two things when I was growing up, about your age. I wanted to play in the NBA, and I wanted to be a businessman after my basketball career was over, and that is what I am doing now.
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A lot of black guys always ask me, 'Did Larry Bird really play that good?' I said, 'Larry Bird is so good it's frightening.'
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