If you're 40 years old and you've never had a failure you've been deprived.

My only failure was the restaurant in Myrtle Beach. I kept it open for four years. It was in a tourist town it was only busy four and half five months of the year. But the bills kept coming all year.

It's probably foolish to expect relationships to go on forever and to say that because something only lasts 10 years it's a failure.

A minute's success pays the failure of years.

For me it is just the total experience - from the time I first started as an assistant coach until I wound up at the University of Texas for 20 years.

When he brought it to me four years ago Rodney King had just arrived I was involved in the clean-up of L.A. and I guess it was part of my experience.

I think the most interesting parts of human experience might be the sparks that come from that sort of chipping flint of cultures rubbing against each other. And living on the border between Mexico and the U.S. for so many years gave me a lot of insight into that.

Our subjective experience of time is highly variable. We all know that days can pass like weeks and months can feel like years and that the opposite can be just as true: A month or year can zoom by in what feels like no time at all.

You can't dodge them all. I got hammered plenty of times through the years. But you just get up and keep playing. I can tell you from experience though. Sometimes it hurts like hell.

The fact that I am a writer comes from the experience of being cut away from my roots and living in Venezuela where I couldn't find a place for myself for years and years.