I attended the bedside of a friend who was dying in a Dublin hospital. She lived her last hours in a public ward with a television blaring out a football match, all but drowning our final conversation.
That smell of freshly cut grass makes me think of Friday night football in high school. The smell of popcorn and cigar smoke reminds me of the stadium. The cutting of the grass reminds me of the August practice.
In high school I was on the basketball team, but the coach did something I didn't dig and the next day he looked up and saw me practising with the football team.
I don't understand people who spend their twenties hanging out in bars and going to football game. That stuff is so boring compared to really applying yourself to what you do.
I told somebody once, 'You don't want the Herschel that plays football... babysitting your child. When I am competing, I am a totally different person.'
There is a broad cultural current that conveys the idea that a film is like a football team, it represents a nation, it is illustrated literature, filmed radio. These are outdated concepts, totally out of touch with today's realities.
Football? Forget it. I didn't have that thing inside me where I wanted to smash against somebody and watch them break. I was too sensitive for that and disliked being that sensitive.
Although I hardly ever turn on the TV set unless it's football season, I do watch a lot of TV on my iPad - perfect for long airplane journeys.
Back in East St. Louis, tennis wasn't the real thing. If you weren't playing baseball, basketball, football, you were kind of on the outside.
I look at Messi, and he makes me laugh. A beautiful footballer who is still like a kid. A world superstar, but still a kid. Innocent, you know. He just plays.
You know, I always wondered what it would have been like to just go to school, play football with the guys and go to the prom. Just like a 'regular person.'
I've always slightly worried the kids who play football around my house. They know I'm an actor, but felt sorry for me because they'd never seen anything I've done.
Some people think football [soccer] is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.
When all the girls were getting all made up and getting into all that girl stuff in junior high I was out playing softball or touch football with the guys.
I wouldn't want to go out six nights a week and watch somebody's reserves playing to check out a footballer to see if we're going to buy him.
Radicalism is as British as tea and cakes, as much a part of our make-up as monarchy and football. It will never have its own jubilees, palaces or honours system.
I watch NFL football on Sundays. I enjoy gaming with friends, meaning role-playing games; I still enjoy going to conventions and traveling.
Would I swap what I have achieved as a cook if I could have been as successful as a footballer? Definitely.
I mean the game is just, everybody talks about baseball but I really think football probably has a little bit more American feeling than anything.
Both of my sons used to coach high school football. When they started, I'd say things I shouldn't have. So I learned my lesson.
When I retired in 2006, I stayed for a further two years in England. I stayed because I wanted to be in England without being a footballer, without the rhythm. I wanted to enjoy the city.
