90 years is a great run, especially as a New York City legend. He was a good golfer too. Some of these oxymorons are essentially one-liners that contain more truth than some would like to admit.
On how events sometimes seem to repeat themselves:
"It's deja vu all over again!"On selecting a restaurant: "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."
On pregame rest: "I usually take a two-hour nap from 1
to 4."
On his team's diminishing pennant chances: "It ain't
over `till it's over."
On his approach to playing baseball: "Baseball is 90
percent mental. The other half is physical."
On learning: "You can observe a lot by watching."
On school: "I'm not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did."
On travel directions: "When you come to a fork in the
road take it."
On battling the shadows in left field at Yankee Stadium:
"It gets late early out there."
On his approach to at-bats: "You can't think and hit
at the same time."
On a slipping batting average: "Slump? I ain't in no
slump. ... I just ain't hitting."
On switch hitters: "He hits from both sides of the plate. He's amphibious."
On that day's game: "We made too many wrong mistakes."
On the bench players' quality: "We have deep depth."
On baseball attendance: "If people don't come to the
ballpark, how are you gonna stop them?"
On the 1973 Mets: "We were overwhelming
underdogs."
On economics: "A nickel ain't worth a dime
anymore."
On being told he looked cool: "You don't look so hot
yourself."
On being asked what time it was: "You mean now?"
On a spring training drill: "Pair off in threes."
On the weather: "It ain't the heat, it the humility."
On being given a day in his honor: "Thank you for
making this day necessary."
On fan mail: "Never answer an anonymous letter."
On philosophy: "If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be."
On death: "Always go to other people's funerals.
Otherwise they won't go to yours."
On the fractured syntax attributed to him: "I really
didn't say everything I said."
