To catch the ball, face up, look at all of my options and then pass. I was playing hot potato. I didn't want to be the guy to stall the triangle.

When I said I retired from basketball playing, I have retired. You will not see me play again. That is a promise.

You don't try to do more than you should.

You have injuries that bother you when you're not playing. When that horn blows, you don't feel it.

You take the good with the bad and try not to listen to everything said about you because you know it's not good.

You work for whatever you get in life.

But I think anybody who believes I could force coach Sloan to resign is crazy. He's stronger than that and personally if I said that to him, he'd probably go tell me to go do something.

Everything I've been through, everything I'm about to go through in my career and my life, if my family wasn't with me and didn't support me, it would be really tough.

For me to be here tonight, everything had to be perfect. I had to get drafted by Utah, had to play with a point guard like John Stockton, and had to be coached by Jerry Sloan and Frank Layden.

I have such a profound respect for what they do day in and day out. This USO tour is especially meaningful because of the friends I have met and I am honored to be apart of it.

I think we're a deeper team, a better team, we still have work to do... nothing is guaranteed, but hopefully we got the mentality to play on the road, and we're starting to get our home thing back in order now-if we can do that we'll be just fine.

If I could have come in for $10m, I would have done that. I've been pretty smart with my money. I'm playing because I want to play this game here - I want the opportunity.

Look at this, scabs and cuts all over me, I get these every night, every game. They can't tell you that you're not at risk, and you can't tell me there's one guy in the N.B.A. who hasn't thought about it.

They changed the floor back to old school. They changed the uniform back to old school. Somebody tell the damn players to start playing like old school.

You're a professional. You don't need for me to break a film down for you. If you want to stop the guy you're playing, they pay you millions of dollars. You get you a TV and break the player down yourself.

Sometimes, you follow your dreams. I say to the young people, 'If you have a dream, chase it.'

I just think we want to stay healthy, and I don't think we think about a sense of urgency. We realize how old we are, we realize we've been playing this game for a long time, but you know what? We're not done yet.

Forget the technique. Hit the guy across from you. Don't let somebody come in your space.

Misery loves company. This is a Hollywood soap opera, and I'm not going to be a star in another Bryant soap opera.

I don't know what my label is. I just think of myself as a plain forward. I like to think I have some finesse to my game, but inside the paint is where men are made. If you can't play there, you should be home with your mama.