Top 70 Bill Walton Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Winning is about having the whole team on the same page.”

— Bill Walton

2. “Health is the most critical thing in our life. With your health anything is possible, without it you can’t do anything.”

— Bill Walton

3. “What a pathetic play from a pathetic human being.”

— Bill Walton

4. “When everybody thinks alike, nobody thinks.”

— Bill Walton

5. “Music is critical in our lives and culture. It’s the inspiration that drives us. It’s also the window to our souls. It’s a reflection as to who we are, what we stand for and where we’re going.”

— Bill Walton

6. “Never forget – happiness ends when selfishness begins.”

— Bill Walton

7. “Success at the highest level comes down to one question: Can you decide that your happiness can come from someone else’s success?”

— Bill Walton

8. “In basketball, you can be the greatest individual player in the world and still lose every game, because a team will always beat an individual.”

— Bill Walton

9. “There are no guarantees in life. The simple twists of fate and the breaks of the game are the two maxims that define so much of the success and failure in life.”

— Bill Walton

10. “When I think of Boris Diaw, I think of Beethoven in the age of the romantics.”

— Bill Walton

11. “Health is a function of three things. 1. Luck 2. Genetics and 3. Choices in your lifestyle.”

— Bill Walton

Featured in: Luck Quotes

12. “I could smell colors, I could feel sounds.”

— Bill Walton

13. “I might be the most injured athlete in the history of sports. I’ve had 31 operations. An endless string of stress fractures.”

— Bill Walton

14. “If you’re living for today, if you’re only dreaming about yesterday, it doesn’t work. You got to know that tomorrow is going to be better. Then you’re on your way.”

— Bill Walton

15. “Never rank, rate, or compare coaches, children, concerts, or championships or congratulations. Just enjoy them all.”

— Bill Walton

16. “No matter how good you get, there’s always something further out there.”

— Bill Walton

17. “When you intercept the ball with your stomach, that is great defense.”

— Bill Walton

18. “Kenyon Martin is the 2nd best player in the Eastern Conference.”

— Bill Walton

19. “John Stockton is one of the true marvels, not just of basketball, or in America, but in the history of Western Civilization!”

— Bill Walton

20. “Anytime you bring Michael Olowokandi on to your team, disaster is soon to follow.”

— Bill Walton

21. “You look at Vladimir Radmanovic, this guy is cut from stone. As if Michelangelo was reading and a lightening bolt flashed before him.”

— Bill Walton

22. “Life is about growth. People are not perfect when they’re 21 years old.”

— Bill Walton

23. “I’m mainstream. Always have been.”

— Bill Walton

24. “It’s the most pleasurable experience in the world! When you’re on a great team and you get hot, your teammates milk you dry – they wear you out and there’s nothing like being on a great team.”

— Bill Walton

25. “I learned a long time ago that minor surgery is when they do operation on someone else, not you.”

— Bill Walton

26. “My bike is my gym, my wheelchair and my church all in one. I’d like to ride my bike all day long but I’ve got this thing called a job that keeps getting in the way.”

— Bill Walton

27. “I believe in science and evolution. I’ve been to the Grand Canyon.”

— Bill Walton

28. “Love is the single most powerful and important word and notion in culture and language. Until the power of love supersedes the love of power we have no chance of ever being successful.”

— Bill Walton

29. “A lot of people understand what not saying anything means, so, in effect, not saying anything is really saying a lot.”

— Bill Walton

30. “The Grateful Dead, they’re my best friends. Their message of hope, peace, love, teamwork, creativity, imagination, celebration, the dance, the vision, the purpose, the passion all of the things I believe in makes me the luckiest Deadhead in the world.”

— Bill Walton

31. “I had the only beard in the Western Hemisphere that made Bob Dylan’s look good.”

— Bill Walton

32. “The offensive presence of Greg Ostertag is quite overwhelming sometimes!”

— Bill Walton

33. “Greg Ostertag is one of the top centers on this planet!”

— Bill Walton

34. “My bike is my gym, my wheelchair, and my church all in one.”

— Bill Walton

35. “Life is easy when you’re hot. But what happens when the ball bounces the other way? You just keep getting back up and climbing up.”

— Bill Walton

36. “You don’t win championships by just being normal, by just being average.”

— Bill Walton

37. “But you have to understand, my beard is so nasty. I mean, it’s the only beard in the history of Western civilization that makes Bob Dylan’s beard look good.”

— Bill Walton

38. “When you are in unrelenting, excruciating and debilitating pain that never goes away for years on end, your life is over.”

— Bill Walton

39. “I couldn’t imagine not playing basketball. To me, basketball is what life is all about.”

— Bill Walton

40. “Doug Christie, what skill, what strenght, what power, what quickness. The visionof Magic Johnson, the athletisicm of Michael Jordan, the toughness of larry Bird. Dough Christie has it all.”

— Bill Walton

41. “I lived to play basketball. Growing up as a kid, Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics were my favorite team. The way they played, the teamwork, the sacrifice, the commitment, the joy, the camaraderie, the relationship with the fans.”

— Bill Walton

42. “Tim Duncan’s foot issue, I think, is a major factor in this year’s playoffs. That’s not the kind of injury that gets better over time playing NBA basketball.”

— Bill Walton

43. “The only man who can stop Cliff Robinson is Cliff Robinson. The man is unstoppable even at 38.”

— Bill Walton

44. “Why is Scottie Pippen taking a charge? Taking a charge is for people with no game!”

— Bill Walton

45. “Patrick Ewing used to be much better in every aspect of the game.”

— Bill Walton

46. “Kazemi has to understand that nobody is going to tell him he has to go back to Iran if he misses a shot.”

— Bill Walton

47. “Tracy McGrady is doing things we’ve never seen from anybody – from any planet!”

— Bill Walton

48. “That’s what makes it so fun to be on a team. You’re sitting at your house, thinking up this wild, crazy stuff as to how it’s going to go, and the other guys are sitting at their houses doing the same thing.”

— Bill Walton

49. “No one missed more basketball in the history of NBA than I did. I played 14 seasons, on the roster for 14 years, and I missed more than nine-and-a-half full seasons.”

— Bill Walton

50. “If Anthony Johnson ever gets a jumper, who’s going to stop him?”

— Bill Walton