Lou Holtz

“God looks after children, animals and idiots.”

“I follow three rules: Do the right thing, do the best you can, and always show people you care.”

“I believe - we all pay taxes. I'm happy to pay it, but I hate to have it abused, money wasted, no accountability. That's going to bother you.”

“Had I been a great athlete, I'm not sure I would have even gone into coaching. I may have turned out feeling that my life ended when my athletic career ended, as happens so many times with various athletes.”

“When people need love and understanding and support the most is when they deserve it the least.”

“My first assistant-coaching job in football was at William & Mary in 1961. The pay wasn't much, so to get $300 more per year, I agreed to coach the golf team. I didn't even know how to keep score, and really, my main job was not to wreck the van on the way to tournaments.”

“I was raised in a religious environment, and my wife is one of the more religious people that I have ever known.”

“How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser.”

“You don't go to Notre Dame to learn something; you go to Notre Dame to be somebody.”

“The problem with having a sense of humor is often that people you use it on aren't in a very good mood.”

“Nothing on this earth is standing still. It's either growing or it's dying. No matter if it's a tree or a human being.”

“At age nine, I got a paper route. Sixty-six papers had to be delivered to sixty-six families every day. I also had to collect thirty cents a week from each customer. I owed the paper twenty cents per customer per week, and got to keep the rest. When I didn't collect, the balance came out of my profit. My average income was six dollars a week.”

“The Sisters of Notre Dame at St. Aloysius Grade School influenced my life tremendously. This was due to the fact that they encouraged you always to make sure that God is the focus of your life, and they didn't allow you to do anything except to the very best of your ability.”

“I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.”

“My philosophy in life is, Decide what you want to do. You have to have something to hope for.”

“I was born January 6, 1937, eight years after Wall Street crashed and two years before John Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath, his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the plight of a family during the Great Depression.”

“I do know this: God does answer your prayers, but it's not always in the way you expect. God knows what's best for us, though, so there's no need to worry when things don't go how we originally wanted them to go.”

“See, winners embrace hard work.”

“Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.”

“Don't run if you can walk. Don't walk if you can stand. Don't stand if you can sit. Don't sit if you can lie down.”