Chris Bosh

“People used to ask me, 'What else do you want to do?' For me, the answer was, 'Nothing.' I loved basketball. It's all I wanted.”

“The way I look at it, competing at a high level, whether that's business, art or film, athletics, anything you do, there's a certain way to go about it.”

“I gave everything I had. All your feelings, all your energy, you put everything out there. And you come up short.”

“For me, I kind of just follow my passions and follow what I love to do and use my free time to kind of answer those questions and go through my bad moods and maybe a little light case of depression.”

“You give me enough shots, I'll average 20. You give me a particular system where I stick close to the basket, I'll average 10 rebounds.”

“The game has gotten a lot faster. I was anticipating changes as far back as when I first came into the league, when the spacing was changing, and big guys were playing in different spaces on the floor. But when that change actually happens, and it happens so quickly, it's just amazing.”

“I'm used to practicing. I'm used to the schedule. That's kind of what I was born to do. That's what I've been doing my whole life.”

“I spend my days in an office in my house. There are things to be done that I don't have the skill set for. I'm able to learn on the fly, thank God, so I can function. But it's difficult.”

“My house is going - kids running out, my wife is running in and out - but I like to sit down and have breakfast.”

“I would really want to teach someone how to function without having to have plays called for you.”

“The media attention - the negative, in particular - it makes you a different person.”

“I'm at a space in my life where I see gifts I've been given, and if it ends, it's been a helluva ride. I did more than I'd ever think I'd do.”

“To be honest, I'm looking at today's game, and I put myself in that position and how I would benefit from the faster basketball, more threes, catch-and-go opportunities, attacking the paint with more space, that's what kind of gets me juiced up and riled up when I watch today's game.”

“I learned HTML in high school and then graduated to CSS. It's a great way to exercise my mind. But it's frustrating as hell.”

“I felt like I was chosen to play basketball when I was younger.”

“I'm still learning more about myself and my situation and really, off the court, how to function there, because I'm kind of getting the taste of retirement now.”

“Once I close the doors, it's closed. I don't open it back up. That's kind of me as a human being. That's just one of the things about me... But yeah, for me, I don't close anything until I'm officially done.”

“Don't get me wrong - it's amazing playing basketball. But being 19 years old, playing and interacting with grown men with families wasn't fun all the time, especially during a grueling 82-game season. That, mixed with Toronto's freezing winter climate, made me miss my buddies back at Tech even more.”

“My dad used to play every other weekend with me when I was young. I started getting better, but he could always beat me. Then one day, he realized the jig was up. And he stopped playing me just before I could beat him.”

“I do kind of marvel at my journey. But at the same time, I look back at a lot of the steps, and maybe not every step, but a lot of the steps, and since I was 12 or 13, I look at the people who helped me and the moments that were inspirational to me, and you can recall what my mindset and what my make-up was at that time to try and be the best.”