Magic Johnson Quotations

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.

Manhood is taking care of your family and being able to bless other people. Not yourself - but whether you can bless other people.

Life doesnt stop because something happens to you.

When you face a crisis, you know who your true friends are.

I'm not cured, but the HIV is asleep deep in my body.

The important thing is this Just because I'm doing well doesn't mean that they're going to do well if they get HIV. A lot of people have died since I have announced. This disease is not going anywhere.

I enjoy being the messenger for God in terms of letting people know about HIV and AIDS.

Just celebrate the life you had, not the life you could've had.

I'm the biggest music lover in the world. I mean, I have seen everybody. I went on tour with Michael Jackson and the Jacksons four or five times.

I have to tell you, I'm proudest of my life off the court. There will always be great basketball players who bounce that little round ball, but my proudest moments are affecting people's lives, effecting change, being a role model in the community.

I met wonderful people playing in the NBA. Whether it is the officials, the scorekeepers, all the people who work for the NBA, not just for the Lakers, but I'm talking about just for the league itself.

I am a businessman. This is what I do each and every day. I love it. I love coming to work. I never have a bad day.

All kids need is a little help, a little hope and somebody who believes in them.

If somebody says no to you, or if you get cut, Michael Jordan was cut his first year, but he came back and he was the best ever. That is what you have to have. The attitude that I'm going to show everybody, I'm going to work hard to get better and better.

I'm at peace with myself. The main thing is not letting people dictate what I do or what I am.

People don't stop eating, and they don't stop drinking coffee.

I tell people to look at me and understand that everybody first told me that I couldn't be a 6-foot, 9-inch point guard, and I proved them wrong. Then they told me I couldn't be a businessman and make money in urban America, and I proved them wrong. And they thought I couldn't win all these championships, and I proved them wrong there as well.

To me, everything is wonderful. Life is wonderful.

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.

You can't get AIDS from a hug or a handshake or a meal with a friend.

Ask not what your teammates can do for you. Ask what you can do for your teammates.

When you are a successful business person, you are only as good as your team. No one can do every deal alone.

I'm the one who will take chances, not worry about the backlash.

I like things going on in my life. I don't want to be on a beach somewhere just relaxing.

I love to be in the ballpark. I love to just go in and enjoy a great baseball game, a great pitchers' duel.

I often tell people when you make a mistake, you not only hurt yourself, but you hurt the ones that love you.

Sometimes friends move apart from each other for whatever reason.

I look three to five years ahead, not 10 years behind.

People see me high-fivin' and smiling on the court, and they don't think that's me. But it is. I just want to go out and be myself.

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.

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.

I want to be here for a long time, so I am going to do everything I have to do to be here. And I want to walk my daughter down the aisle and give her away to somebody some day. I want to make sure I am still here to make sure my two young sons become men.

My dad worked two jobs his whole life, and so I told him he's the reason I have 20 jobs.

ObamaCare is working. I talk to a lot of CEOs of hospitals. It is working.

I motivate others by making sure that they understand to go after their dreams and dont let anyone tell you you cant. If you are motivated enough and put the work in that you can achieve anything in life that you set your mind to.

I'll hear people say every so often that having HIV must not be so bad - 'Just look at Magic and how well he's doing.'

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.

If you're a competitive person, that stays with you. You don't stop. You always look over your shoulder.

Every kid, every minority kid can be so successful if they focus on their education.

It's a burden trying to keep a secret. It's hard. It probably takes more out of you trying to hold it and keep it than it does for you to really let it out.

Magic is who I am on the basketball court. Earvin is who I am.

I've always been a leader my whole life. I've always led. I didn't know how to do anything else.

As an athlete, I understood the value of my health insurance. I knew that in my profession, injuries were common and could happen at any time.

I tell you, it's funny because the only time I think about HIV is when I have to take my medicine twice a day.

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.'

I'm gonna love my son until the end.

Magic is crazy. He is that crazy wild guy on the basketball court that is very intense and very serious. He is the guy who lives and eats and breathes basketball.

When you think about the NASCAR brand, it resonates everywhere. They have the No. 1 sports brand.

I have a fond place in my heart for Seattle, so I hope that an NBA team comes back to this great city, this great sports city.

The best doctors and medicine in the world can't save you if you don't do what you're supposed to do.

Urban America is like a foreign country in a sense.

Young people want you to be real with them.

All students should have the opportunity to receive their high school diplomas and be fully prepared for college or the workplace.

I don't care who is attacking my son. I still support him; I still love him.

I guess when people ask what is the biggest transition to the NBA from college, it is definitely defense and the mental part.

I'm a businessman, and what I know is numbers and business.

I think that there are always goals for me to try to achieve, and I'm going to work toward those goals.

My dad was my hero. And I got my personality from my mother.

I like to take walks in the park by myself, where no one can bother me and I can think.

I'm glad that Gov. Scott down in Florida accepted ObamaCare, because it will work.

I do not have bad days. I don't wake up in the morning and think that I'm going to get AIDS. I don't dream bad dreams about it. If I did, I'd be giving in to the negativity.

I got blessed from my mom. She's the personality; she's the one who smiled, so I took on part of her, and who also wanted to help and save the world. Then I took on part of my dad, who is tough.

I'm building shopping centers and movie theaters in the inner cities. So that means supplying jobs and letting blacks understand that we have to build our communities back, not looking to anybody else.

I'm the one who started redevelopment in South Los Angeles, not Jan Perry. I did it. I love Jan. She's a good person, and she did a wonderful job with what she did downtown, but in L.A., South L.A., I'm the one.

My father was a great example of a strong and good man and Christian man, and my mother taught all my six sisters how to be young ladies and mothers and how to take care of your family. And so I think they were - they still are - great examples for all of us to their kids and to the world, too.

My first and only experience in baseball, the coach signed me up; he didn't tell me there's a thing called the curveball. I didn't know that. So the ball's coming at me and I start backing out, and then it broke inside. And the umpire says, 'Strike one!' And I'm saying, 'How is that a strike? It almost hit me!'

You know I was a shy guy and people didn't know that and still don't know it today. I'm sure basketball brought my shyness out because of the fact that you have to do interviews, and that people are always talking to you in terms of the fans and everything.

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.

The first year was hard for me to deal with. The second year was a little bit easier, but still difficult. It took me five years to get it out of me. It was a difficult moment, a difficult time.

No one plans to get sick or hurt - I certainly didn't - but most people will need medical care at some point in their lives.

The audience likes their emotions to be touched. They want to laugh and cry and feel good.

Athletes don't like to get up early, but it never bothered me.

I try to hire people I don't have to motivate. But I do motivate the people working with and for me.

My father is my idol, so I always did everything like him. He used to work two jobs and still come home happy every night.

When a woman is frustrated, and it's your wife, you as the husband get that frustration.

I am and will always be a Laker for life.

For a long time, I'd work until 10 or 11. When I work, I'm on. I'm 'Magic.' I love it, but it takes a lot out of me.

My family is a praying family, a Christian family.

My having HIV has no bearing on my business.

When you are honest and open with young people, they let you in.

Research your idea. See if there's a demand. A lot of people have great ideas, but they don't know if there's a need for it. You also have to research your competition.

I grew up a Detroit Tigers fan, and now to be an owner of the Dodgers is amazing.

Everyone should have the opportunity to get affordable, quality health coverage.

I get up 5:30-6 every morning. I'm in the gym. I run a couple miles.

I love putting people to work of color.

I thank Him every chance I get - on my knees praying.

The real story is that I had unprotected sex. That's that. That's easy.

When I grew up, my family, we sat down, all of us to watch 'Good Times,' 'Sanford and Son,' all those shows that were out at that time.

I'm from there. You know, when you grow up with these people and see them every day and then you look at the numbers it was easy; it was a no-brainer. And when Sony took a look, it was a no-brainer to them, too.

We feel that we are going to have a great success here in Brooklyn, a theater that everybody will be proud of and everybody will come and support. We will continue to be a community-based theater. That's what we do different than any other theater chain.

Los Angeles was jump-started by the construction of the Staples Center.

No doubt about it, the landscape and your opportunities are so much greater here in the U.S. than in any other country, and if you come up with a great idea, and then put a great business plan with it, and you can get the capital, then the sky's the limit,

Next season, Ohio State center recruit Greg Oden will be the best player to enter the league since Magic Johnson became a (Michigan State) Spartan in 1977.

People will live here, work here and shop here,

I am so blessed and lucky to be able to find something I truly love and I'm passionate about and that I'm having so much fun doing,

I can't do it by myself. Hopefully, these other guys and ladies will come on out and invest in our community, because this is not good business, it's great business! You can make some money,

J-Mac said he could beat me one-on-one. Well, before we make this movie we're going to come back into this gymnasium and see if he can.

I think you just have to keep knocking down doors, and you have to keep being aggressive, and even if somebody says no, then you have to knock on the next door,

I think the game itself has gotten better over the recent years. The reason why is I think the players are now taking the game a little bit more seriously and really trying to win the game.

I watched the way he handled himself on all those nationally televised interviews that followed, and he seemed to be at ease and having fun with things. It reminded me of me. When I met Jason, I told him that he and I must have known each other from a previous life.