"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that."

"I don't think I ever had any enjoyment in the playoffs until you won."

"We didn't play the game with a lot of focused energy in the first half. I thought we were a little slow, we looked tired and (Cleveland) looked sharp and they were good."

"If we had come back with the same team as last year, it would have been a disaster. We didn't have the firepower to sustain what we needed in this conference. Last year was a honeymoon year. A couple players had career years. I didn't believe we had the core of players like the core we have now. We have a lot more versatility now."

"There's no such thing as coulda, shoulda, or woulda. If you shoulda and coulda, you woulda done it."

"Look for your choices, pick the best one, then go with it."

"There's always the motivation of wanting to win. Everybody has that. But a champion needs, in his attitude, a motivation above and beyond winning."

"He kept telling me he's ready. But I'm a stubborn old coach."

"The demise of Shaquille O'Neal has been greatly exaggerated. I can guarantee you that - and I coach him."

"We as an organization will do just about anything to supply comfort, compassion, money and anything else we can to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The Spurs and the Heat getting together to put on this exhibition to raise as much money as we can for the victims is an indication of what both organizations and the NBA is all about."

"There are only two options regarding commitment. You're either in or you're out. There's no such thing as life in-between."

"From nobody to upstart. From upstart to contender. From contender to winner. From winner to champion. From champion to Dynasty."

"If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end, and the question which now distracts the country will be settled just as surely as all other difficulties of like character which have originated in this government have been adjusted."

"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty."

"To the best of my judgment, I have labored for, and not against, the Union. As I have not felt, so I have not expressed any harsh sentiment towards our Southern brethren. I have constantly declared, as I really believed, the only difference between them and us is the difference of circumstances."

"If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up boldly and lone and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors."

"Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed."

"I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong."

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

"I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life."

"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think and feel."

"I hold that while man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind."

"I was very conscious of (players') minutes and in the end I was very conscious of health. Today is not a good barometer to judge us."

"I think the overall health is OK. Everybody has something wrong with them but it is not debilitating. We just have to keep our fingers crossed everyday that we can keep everybody on the court."