Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

“What I have is P.H. positive chronic myeloid leukemia, which is an aberration in your white blood cells.”

“I am highly offended by the total lack of acknowledgement of my contribution to Laker success.”

“The type of leukemia that I am dealing with is treatable. So if I do what my doctors tell me to do - get my blood checked regularly, take my meds and consult with my doctor and follow any ad...”

“Even when there are adverse circumstances, I try to do my job. And I usually do.”

“I totally alienated some reporters as I retreated.”

“OK, I'll put it like this: I doubt if we will see another All-American basketball athlete who is a Rhodes Scholar.”

“When I was 17, I worked in a mentoring program in Harlem designed to improve the community. That's when I first gained an appreciation of the Harlem Renaissance, a time when African-American...”

“I have been coaching recently. I coached high school basketball in Arizona, and I hope that more opportunities become available.”

“In athletics there's always been a willingness to cheat if it looks like you're not cheating. I think that's just a quirk of human nature.”

“I have always thought that writers come with any variety of attributes. Some are capable and some aren't.”

“There are a lot of authors in the world, so it's difficult to find a unique niche to present your take on things. That is always a challenge for any author.”

“I'm the baddest among the bad guys.”

“I'm not comfortable being preachy, but more people need to start spending as much time in the library as they do on the basketball court.”

“It's hard for young players to see the big picture. They just see three or four years down the road.”

“My mother had to send me to the movies with my birth certificate, so that I wouldn't have to pay the extra fifty cents that the adults had to pay.”

“I think race has been a burden for black Americans. Being Muslim has also been a challenge because so many people do not understand Islam.”

“I think black Americans expect too much from individual black Americans in terms of changing the status quo.”

“In a typical history book, black Americans are mentioned in the context of slavery or civil rights. There's so much more to the story.”

“I did a book in 1996, an overview of black history. In that process I became more aware of a lot of the black inventors of the 19th century.”

“When the line started to blur between the fans and the players, sometimes things can get ugly.”