A biography for Sonny Bill Williamshasn’t been written yet.
“Beforehand you think, 'Oh, changing nappies - I'm going to be up; I need to get sleep for training.' But when it happens, when you're there, as soon as you hear a wiggle or a cough or something, you're up straight away. It doesn't bother you.”
“You always have your knockers. There's always something wrong. But I'm happy. I think that I'm improving as a fighter; that's all I can ask for.”
“My parents were always living from pay cheque to pay cheque. They were always struggling.”
“I have just fallen back in love with rugby league again.”
“I do speak my mind a lot more than when I was younger. I guess that's just my Polynesian background. That's how we are: just sit back and try and fit in, try and make everyone else happy.”
“If we're going to be getting treated like that, why can't we treat the clubs like that? I just want to see the game and the players looked after the way they should be because the crowds don't turn up to watch David Gallop play... they turn up to watch the players play.”
“I grew up as a Polynesian kid in the Polynesian community, and I was this skinny white kid.”
“I grew up in a commissioned house in the next suburb over, Mount Abbot. It was a two-bedroom house with me, my brother, and my two sisters. Mum and Dad slept in the lounge, and we didn't have wallpaper.”
“To win competitions you need a bit of luck and some talent. I think we have some talent on our bus.”
“If I could go back and change how I left the NRL, I would. My name will forever be tarnished but I wasn't the man I am now.”
“People have goodness in their hearts.”
“I've had an amazing ride. I've been blessed beyond things that I could never have imagined.”
“There was no way I was going to end up in the scrum when I came to rugby - you know, waste my pretty looks.”
“It's not an easy gig, being in the NRL sometimes: you always feel for the boys because you have that mutual respect knowing what they go through.”
“It was a fairly normal happy upbringing. Not a lot of money, but a lot of love.”
“You always feel for your fellow players when they are going through tough times, losing and things like that.”
“I love winning, and I love the challenge.”
“I rock up to training, and Folkesy, Steve Folkes - someone that, to be honest, has never paid any interest in my personal life - he comes up to me and starts saying, 'You're not turning Muslim are you?'”
“Now, I know a lot of things in the big man's world are not what they seem: a lot of people are out for themselves, and you can't always trust what someone says.”
“I just used to bank on my athleticism.”