DeMar DeRozan

“I don't care what shape, form, ethnicity, nothing. I treat everybody the same.”

“At the end of the day, the only person to have a better Kobe sneaker game than me is Kobe himself.”

“I'm no stranger to pain. It's what made me.”

“I never wanted to be ordinary. I never just wanted to do one thing.”

“I'm sure there's a long list of one-time all-stars, and I don't want to be on it.”

“Me and my mom are just alike in every type of way. I talk to my mom about everything.”

“Other people gotta be told when to go to the gym, what to work out, what to work on, what to do. For me, it was always my own self-motivation of maybe just wanting to make it out of Compton. I was like that with everything in my life.”

“You gotta be able to take criticism if you want to be anything close to great. Even if it's not true. You use that as an advantage for yourself. You can use that negative energy and turn that into an energy that drives you to be something more than you thought you could be. That's one thing I did.”

“My dad always played sports. He played football. I always wanted to play football because my dad played football, but my mom never wanted me to play football because she said she couldn't take me getting hit.”

“Every time I shoot a turnaround, I feel like nobody can block it.”

“I've never been one who wanted any type of attention, good nor bad.”

“I told myself that if I went to Compton High, and I made something out of the school, it would mean something to me later down the line because I started everything. And future kids would say, 'DeMar made it here; why can't I?' I wanted to stay home.”

“I don't try to be nothing I'm not. I'm not flashy. I'm just me.”

“Growing up, I didn't have a lot and always wanted things. But I was too prideful to ask for anything; I always worked for it.”

“We're all human at the end of the day. That's why I look at every person I encounter the same way.”

“My mindset was that I was always going to be in Toronto my whole career, but I was never naive.”

“My mom's one of the toughest ladies I know. I've seen her lose both her brothers, both her parents. She's been through a lot, and to see her get up every day and put a smile on her face, that shows nothing but strength.”

“I stay standoffish in a sense, in my own personal space, to be able to cope with whatever it is you've got to cope with.”

“People ask me what I would have done if it wasn't for basketball. I can never give a good story because I honestly don't know. I had no other options.”

“My mom always told me: Never make fun of anybody, because you never know what that person is going through. Ever since I was a kid, I never did. I never did.”