The true mission of American sports is to prepare young men for war.

The sadness of the end of a career of an older athlete, with the betrayal of his body, is mirrored in the rest of us. Consciously or not, we know: there, soon, go I.

The gods play games with men as balls.

I never yet could make out why men are so fond of hunting; they often hurt themselves, often spoil good horses, and tear up the fields—and all for a hare or a fox or a stag that they could get more easily some other way.

The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of a gun.

Football causeth fighting, brawling, contention, quarrel picking, murder, homicide and great effusion of bloode, as daily experience teacheth.

Though the boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest.

No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent human actions called games.

A passion for horses, players, and gladiators seems to be the epidemic folly of the times. The child receives it in his mother’s womb; he brings it with him into the world, and in a mind so possessed, what room for science, or any generous purpose?

If I played in New York, they’d name a candy bar after me.

We cannot say what the woman might be physically, if the girl were not allowed all the freedom of the boy in romping, climbing, swimming, playing whoop and ball.

If I lose at play, I blaspheme, and if my fellow loses, he blasphemes. So that God is always sure to be the loser.

A win always seems shallow: it is the loss that is so profound and suggests nasty infinities.