Mamba Quotes

A lot of people say they want to be great, but they’re not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness. They have other concerns, whether important or not, and they spread themselves out. That’s totally fine. After all, greatness is not for everybody.

The mindset isn’t about seeking a result—it’s more about the process of getting to that result. It’s about the journey and the approach. It’s a way of life. I do think that it’s important, in all endeavors, to have that mentality.

you can manipulate an opponent’s strength and use it against them.

If you really want to be great at something you have to truly care about it. If you want to be great in a particular area, you have to obsess over it.

You have to work hard in the dark to shine in the light

I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my game, but I also wasn’t willing to sacrifice my family time. So I decided to sacrifice sleep, and that was that.

One of the main takeaways was that you have to work hard in the dark to shine in the light. Meaning: It takes a lot of work to be successful, and people will celebrate that success, will celebrate that flash and

A lot of people say they want to be great, but they’re not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness.

Good coaches tell you where the fish are, great coaches teach you how to find them.

If you want to be a better player, you have to prepare, prepare, and prepare some more.

The only aspect that can’t change, though, is that obsession.

When everyone else was thinking it was time for bed, his mind was telling him it’s time to get ahead of the competition.

I am she who lifts the mountains When she goes to hunt, Who wears mamba for a headband And a lion for a belt. Beware! I swallow elephants whole And pick my teeth with rhinoceros horns, I drink up rivers to get at the hippos. Let them hear my words! Nhamo is coming And her hunger is great. I am she who tosses trees Instead of spears. The ostrich is my pillow And the elephant is my footstool! I am Nhamo Who makes the river my highway And sends crocodiles scurrying into the reeds!

Some people, after all, enjoy looking at a watch; others are happier figuring out how the watch works.

From the beginning, I wanted to be the best. I had a constant craving, a yearning, to improve and be the best. I never needed any external forces to motivate me.

What I mean by that is: if I wanted to implement something new into my game, I’d see it and try incorporating it immediately. I wasn’t scared of missing, looking bad, or being embarrassed. That’s because I always kept the end result, the long game, in my mind. I always focused on the fact that I had to try something to get it, and once I got it, I’d have another tool in my arsenal. If the price was a lot of work and a few missed shots, I was OK with that.

One of the main takeaways was that you have to work hard in the dark to shine in the light. Meaning:

What separates great players from all-time great players is their ability to self-assess, diagnose weaknesses, and turn those flaws into strengths.

The key, though, is being aware of how you’re feeling and how you need to be feeling. It all starts with awareness.

You have to dance beautifully in the box that you're comfortable dancing in. My box was to be extremely ambitious within the sport of basketball. Your box is different than mine. Everybody has their own. It's your job to try to perfect it and make it as beautiful of a canvas as you can make it. And if you have done that, then you have lived a successful life. You have lived with Mamba Mentality.

One of the qualities that has made Kobe so successful, and always will, is his attention to detail. He always used to tell us: if you want to be a better player, you have to prepare, prepare, and prepare some more.

Simply put, good coaches make sure you know how to use both hands, how to make proper reads, how to understand the game. Good coaches tell you where the fish are, great coaches teach you how to find them. That’s the same at every level.

Kobe knew that to be the best you need a different approach from everyone else.

After all, greatness is not for everybody

Good coaches, however, teach you how to think and arm you with the fundamental tools necessary to execute properly.

I never felt outside pressure. I knew what I wanted to accomplish, and I knew how much work it took to achieve those goals. I then put in the work and trusted in it. Besides, the expectations I placed on myself were higher than what anyone expected from me.

The message was that if you want to win championships, you have to let people focus on what they do best while you focus on what you do best. For him, that was rebounding, running the floor, and blocking shots.

To do that, despite the injury, I had to maintain control and dictate where I was going to go with the ball and how I was going to play. I had to, even on one ankle, keep the advantage in my court and never let the defense force me to do something I didn’t want to do. That was the key here, and that’s the key always.

If you really want to be great at something, you have to truly care about it. If you want to be great in a particular area, you have to obsess over it.

I am one for whom dangers are play- things One who empties men of their strength as a nut from its shell The charms you use I chop up for relish on my porridge Beware! I am a deadly mamba Wrestler of legends A hive of hornets A man among men

The only way I was able to pick up details on the court, to be aware of the minutiae on the hardwood, was by training my mind to do that off the court and focusing on every detail in my daily life. By reading, by paying attention in class and in practice, by working, I strengthened my focus. By doing all of that, I strengthened my ability to be present and not have a wandering mind.

Black Mamba  

Corbin’s brow furrowed. “You have a claymore?” “You don’t?” asked Bailey. His frown deepened. “No.” “Huh,” said the mamba. “Well that’s weird.

As a kid, I would work tirelessly on adding elements to my game. I would see something I liked in person or on film, go practice it immediately, practice it more the next day, and then go out and use it. By the time I reached the league, I had a short learning curve. I could see something, download it, and have it down pat.

Obsess to find ways to win. Work ethic separates the great from the good." "Be so focused on your own ambitions that no one can distract you from achieving them." "Have a maniacal work ethic. You want to overprepare so that luck becomes a product of design." "Stay hungry. Dominate each day with ambition unknown to humankind." "Goals motivate you. Bad habits corrode you." "Operate with love. It fuels the desire to become great." "Be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Growth comes at the end of discomfort." "Don't wait for opportunity. Create it. Seize it. Shape it." "Learn every aspect of your craft and substance will follow." "Find your killer instinct. Impose your will. But also realize you are part of a team.

Bailey gaped. “Son of a bitch. We totally need to dig out the tire iron.” Aspen dug her nails into the arms of the chair. “And also the claymore.” Corbin’s brow furrowed. “You have a claymore?” “You don’t?” asked Bailey. His frown deepened. “No.” “Huh,” said the mamba. “Well that’s weird.” “No, Bailey, it’s not. I’d say most people don’t own a claymore,” he told her. “That’s a problem they should rectify. Swords often come in handy. As do bullwhips.” “You have a bullwhip?” “You don’t?” “No.” “Weird.

We used often to see a big one gliding across the dirt road ahead of the car, and the golden rule was never to accelerate and try to run it over, especially if the roof of the car was open, as ours often was. If you hit a snake at speed, the front wheel can flip it up into the air and there is a danger of it landing in your lap. I can think of nothing worse than that. The really bad snake in Tanganyika is the black mamba. It is the only one that has no fear of man and will deliberately attack him on sight. If it bites you, you are a gonner.

I know what it is: it's a green mamba snake away up in the tree. You don't have to be afraid of them anymore because you are one. They lie so still on the tree branch; they are the same everything as the tree. You could be right next to one and not even know. It's so quiet there. That's just exactly what I want to go and be, when I have to disappear. Your eyes will be little and round but you are so far up there you can look down and see the whole world, Mama and everybody. The tribes of Ham, Shem, and Japheth all together. Finally you are the highest one of all.

You have to enter every activity, every single time, with a want and need to do it to the best of your ability.

I saw the snake myself, and I am not one to exaggerate. It was two metres long, at the very least. And it was a mamba. I know those snakes. It was a mamba—not a hyperbole.” “I would not like to be bitten by a hyperbole,” muttered Mma Ramotswe. She could not stop herself; she had to say this, although more or less immediately she regretted it. “They are very dangerous, Mma,” said Mma Potokwane.

If you really want to be great at something, you have to truly care about it. If you want to be great in a particular area, you have to obsess over it. A lot of people say they want to be great, but they’re not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness. They have other concerns, whether important or not, and they spread themselves out. That’s totally fine. After all, greatness is not for everybody.

Mmph,” the officer glanced up from their South African passports, green mambas, her best friend Keletso called them, because they’d bite you with visa fees for all the countries you’re not allowed to sommer just go to. “And you’re returning to South Africa after your vacation?” “Yes, that’s where we live,” proud of the hard fact of it. Away from everyday Nazis and school shootings so regular they were practically part of the academic calendar along with prom and football season, away from the slow gutting of democracy, trigger-happy cops, and the terror of raising a black son in America. But how can you live there, people would ask her (and Devon, her American husband, especially), meaning Johannesburg. Isn’t it dangerous? And she wanted to reply, how can you live here?

Every team needs either a confrontational star player or coach. In San Antonio, Gregg Popovich was that guy and Tim Duncan was not. In Golden State, Draymond Green is the confrontational one; Steve Kerr is not. For us, Phil was not that type of person, so I provided that force. You always have to have that balance and counterbalance, and Phil and I were perfectly suited for each other in that way.

La doctora von Blimenstein había convencido al pobre hombre de que sus temores tenían un origen puramente sexual y eran consecuencia de una sensación de desajuste provocada por la idea de que su pene no era tan largo ni tan potente como una pitón adulta y le había enviado de nuevo a trabajar en el serpentario, donde, tres semanas después, le había mordido, esta vez con fatales consecuencias, una mamba negra cuya longitud intentaba él comparar con la de su propio miembro erecto, el cual sabía que alcanzaba los dieciocho centímetros de longitud. «Treinta y cinco centímetros», acababa de deducir, apoyando la cabeza de la mamba contra su glans penis. Fue prácticamente lo último que pudo decir, pues la mamba, con ferocidad plenamente justificada por la absurda comparación, hundió los colmillos en su contrapartida simbólica. Tras lo cual, la doctora von Blimenstein se había apartado del psicoanálisis y se había decidido por un enfoque más conductista.

Still, the alien biologist might be excused for lumping together the whole biosphere - all the retroviruses, mantas, foraminifera, mongongo trees, tetanus bacilli, hydras, diatoms, stromatolite-builders, sea slugs, flatworms, gazelles lichens, corals, spirochetes, banyans, cave ticks, least bitters, caracaras, tufted puffins, ragweed pollen, wold spiders, horseshoe crabs, black mambas, monarch butterflies, whiptail lizards, trypanosomes, birds of paradise, electric eels, wild parsnips, arctic terns, fireflies, titis, chrysanthemums, hammerhead sharks, rotifers, wallabies, malarial plasmodia, tapirs, aphids, water moccasins, morning glories, whooping cranes, komodo dragons, periwinkles millipede larvae, angler fish, jellyfish lungfish, yeast, giant redwoods, tardigrades, archaebacteria, sea lilies, lilies of the valley, humans bonobos, squid and humpback whales - as, simply, Earthlife. The arcane distinctions among these swarming variations on a common theme may be left to specialists or graduate students. The pretensions and conceits of this or that species can readily be ignored. There are, after-all, so many worlds about which an extraterrestrial biologist must know. It will be enough if a few salient and generic characteristics of life on yet another obscure planet are noted for the cavernous recesses of the galactic archives.

Black Mamba

PRESIÓN Nunca sentí presión externa. Yo sabía lo que quería conseguir y el gran trabajo que tenía que hacer para lograr estas metas. Así que hacía el trabajo y confiaba en él. Además, las expectativas que yo tenía de mí mismo eran mayores que las de todos los demás.

YO IBA A DOMINAR No importaba a quién me enfrentara. Esa era la mentalidad con la que iba a todos los partidos.

with

Black as a mamba, black as burnt bark, black as the men you fear in the dark. Do not fear what you are, there is still warmth in a body with scars. Be gentle, daughter of God, as you would with the residual spark from cinder.

Kobe sabía que para ser el mejor necesitas un enfoque distinto al de los demás.

errant

Il punto non è essere Kobe Bryant. Il punto è diventare il Kobe Bryant di sé stessi.

I never wanted to experience the still-familiar feeling of defeat again.

An elderly man and woman in their fifties,

Coaches are teachers. Some coaches—lesser coaches—try telling you things. Good coaches, however, teach you how to think and arm you with the fundamental tools necessary to execute properly. Simply put, good coaches make sure you know how to use both hands, how to make proper reads, how to understand the game. Good coaches tell you where the fish are, great coaches teach you how to find them. That’s the same at every level.

For the pirates of those days were nothing if not spectacular in fatal invention; where you or I, if we wanted to dispose of an enemy, would simply blip him over the head or butter the stairs, the Coast Brethren got up to dodges you would hardly believe, like leaving tarantula eggs to hatch out in his tea cosy, or suspending him face down over the dreaded maguay plant, which has a nasty sharp point and grows two feet overnight (eek!), or chaining him in an underground cellar with the tide coming in which slowly raises a burning candle inch by inch until it smoulders through a rope from which dangles a glittering blade which falls to break a phial containing acid which eats through the lock of a boxful of black mambas. (The incoming tide will probably drown the brutes, but it's the thought that counts.)

Si realmente quieres ser bueno en algo, ese algo te tiene que importar de verdad. Si quieres ser grande en un área determinada, tienes que obsesionarte con ella. Son muchos los que dicen que quieren ser grandes, pero no están dispuestos a hacer los sacrificios necesarios para conseguir esa grandeza. Tienen otras preocupaciones, más o menos importantes, y se dispersan. Y está bien. Después de todo, la grandeza no es para todo el mundo.

Jumbo mamba!” trilled Kat. “Kill it!” screeched Mrs. Palmer. “It’s poisonous!” “That’s a mauve-banded king snake,” said Levi. He’d seen pictures in one of his wildlife books. “It’s not venomous. It squeezes its prey.

He was wearing white Adidas boxing shoes and long black satin shorts and another of his endless supply of “Black Mamba” T-shirts, this one with Kobe Bryant’s likeness on it. In comparison, I was the one who looked like the thug, in a Red Sox T-shirt cut to the shoulders and baggy gray sweatpants and sneakers to match. “Good news for you,” Hawk said, watching me move from side to side in front of the bag, “is that your workout clothes won’t never go out of fashion, on account of never having been in no fashion in the first place.” “You planning to review my workout along with my functional attire?” I said. “Don’t require much planning. You been letting your elbow fly out from underneath your shoulder lately when you throw your hook.” “You’re just pointing that out now?” “Been workin’ up to it, I know how sensitive you are ’bout what’s left of your form.

Michael Jordan and Phil Knight certainly shared a competitive nature that bordered on insanity. If you think Jordan and Kobe are competitive, go meet Phil Knight. He's a no bullshit competitor. It's, 'You play for me or I can't stand you, I will kill you.' That's Phil Knight, full stop. And he's not shy about it.

Flotsam Some people figuratively, although sometimes literately, washed up on the barren beaches of West Africa because they were unwelcome in most other countries. Adventurers, seamen, construction contractors, military mercenaries, as well as missionaries and professional government employees, found themselves here. Money was frequently the motivating factor for people who came to this third world country and most of the typical tropical tramps I knew were involved in the many unsavory activities going on. The dank weather which is usually heavy with moisture from May until October, with a short reprieve of a week or two in July or August, contributed to the bleak attitude people had. What passes for a dry season lasts from November through April with the least likely chance of rain in December and January. The frequent heavy showers and rainstorms make Liberia and Sierra Leone the wettest climatic region in Africa. One way or another, everyone was always wet…. This in turn attributed to the heavy drinking and it was said that if the moisture didn't come from the sky it certainly came from the pores... Generally speaking in West Africa near the Equator the climate is tropical, hot and humid all year round! There were numerous meeting places or drinking holes for the expats. Guaranteed, there was no way any of us would be able to survive the conditions of West Africa without occasionally imbibing, which in reality we did constantly. The most popular bars for Europeans, which in Liberia included Americans, were run by foreigners to the country and these included the more upscale American Hotel and the old Ducor Hotel, near the Cape Mesurado Lighthouse on Mamba Point.

i am the BLACK MAMBA

Former spider boys came from all walks of life—they ranged from homeless street kids and school dropouts to decent kids, but the best ones were those who had gone anywhere and everywhere to search out and capture their fighting spiders; they even ventured into dangerous bushes infested with black mambas. These boys were risk-takers and crowd-pullers, always on the move, always looking for worthy opponents with which to fight their spiders.

Misschien meer geluk in je volgende incarnatie, Mamba, dacht ze.

Ik geloof het niet. Mamba is gewoon een oude man. Er is niets magisch aan, aan die droogte. Het weer wordt geregeerd door de lucht, door de zon en de wolken... niet door hem. - Bloem-van-de-droogte

Don’t feel too bad about what humans have done,” the mamba said with a gentleness in his voice that she’d never quite heard before. “Feeling guilty doesn’t help anything anyway. Humans are animals doing what all animals do: surviving. It’s just that you’ve done it too well, so well that now you have to become a new kind of animal, one who makes sure that all the others survive, too.

Marty grinned as he backed toward the door. "Green eggs and mamba," he said, then ran.

*Wazee wanasema: "kuku hasubiri onyo toka kwa mwewe ili kuficha vifaranga wake." Mwewe atakayetoa onyo kwa kuku, si mwewe tena. Huyo atakuwa njiwa. Atakayekupatia onyo ni yule tu anayekujali na kukuthamini. Tangu lini mamba akamwonya swala anayetaka kunywa maji mtoni? Ni kwa sababu kiu ya swala ni furaha ya mamba. Yule anayeona mateso yako kuwa sinema kwake, atafurahia zaidi utakaponaswa na mtego. Usimchukie akupaye onyo. Mwombee aishi maisha marefu kwani watu kama hawa maishani ni wachache. Usikubali uwe sinema ya watu.

Sting the mamba with his own venom, pull down the lion with his own claws, deceive the clever chacma baboon with his own trickery.

No matter what, people are going to like you or not like you. So be authentic, and let them like you or not for who you actually are.

The mindset isn’t about seeking a result—it’s more about the process of getting to that result. It’s about the journey and the approach. It’s a way of life. I do think that it’s important, in all endeavors, to have that mentality.

Estaban obsesionados con sus respectivos oficios, y eso hacía más fácil que yo confiara en ellos.

It’s one thing to have talent, but another to have the drive to learn the nuances.

El dolor en un área de tu cuerpo a menudo proviene de un desequilibrio en otra parte. Con eso en mente, es importante tratar la causa y no el efecto.

That’s the money right there, that thirst and quest for information and improvement.

made every second of the national anthem count.

WINING

She winced, knowing what she needed to do. “P-please.” Gross! Manners had an unfamiliar taste in her mouth. Politeness was definitely something she’d have to get used to. “Did you just say please?” Mamba sneered. “Boy, you must be desperate.

Tompkins Square Park. The Park is crowded. This is not 14th street, this is the community. There is a music phenomenon coming out of hundreds of transistor radios. There is a mamba phenomenon. There is a dog phenomenon- there are dogs in the dog run taking craps, dogs on the leash, dogs roaming free in packs. Men and girls playing handball in the fenced-in handball courts. The girls are good. They shout in Spanish. Dogs jump for the ball in the handball courts. In the benches of the park sit old Ukrainian ladies with babushkas. The old ladies have small yapping dogs on leashes. Old men play chess at tables. The old dogs of the men lie under the stone tables with their tongues hanging. On the big dirt hill in the centre of the park, a kid and a dog roll over each other. A burned-out head drifts by, barefoot with his feet red and swollen. A dog growls at him. Down the path from the old ladies in babushkas sits one blond-haired girl on the pipe fence. Four black guys surround her. One talks to her earnestly. She stares straight ahead. Her radio plays Aretha. Her dog sleeps at the end of its leash. Benches are turned over, a group of hippies huddles around the guitar, dogs streak back and forth under the bandshell with the zigzag propulsion of pinballs. Two cop cars are parked on 10th street. Mambo, mambo. A thousand radios play rock.

Si realmente quieres ser bueno en algo, ese algo te tiene que importar de verdad. Si quieres ser grande en un área determinada, tienes que obsesionarte con ella.

Una de las cualidades que ha hecho que Kobe tenga tanto éxito, y que hará que lo siga teniendo en el futuro, es su atención al detalle. Él siempre solía decirnos: si quieres ser un jugador mejor, tienes que prepararte, prepararte y seguir preparándote.

Hervey was not praising the city but suggesting that things like adultery and bad mothering existed in the white downtown aristocratic neighborhoods, and not just among the poor blacks who inhabited Heyward's novels Mamba's Daughters and Porgy.

A mamba that had never been found again.

El dolor en un área de tu cuerpo a menudo proviene de un desequilibrio en otra parte.

I liked challenging people and making them uncomfortable. That’s what leads to introspection and that’s what leads to improvement. You could say I dared people to be their best selves. That approach never wavered. What I did adjust, though, was how I varied my approach from player to player. I still challenged everyone and made them uncomfortable, I just did it in a way that was tailored to them. To learn what would work and for who, I started doing homework and watched how they behaved. I learned their histories and listened to what their goals were. I learned what made them feel secure and where their greatest doubts lay. Once I understood them, I could help bring the best out of them by touching the right nerve at the right time.

the moment you give up is the moment you let someone else win.

that I had to try something to get it, and once I got it, I’d have another tool in my arsenal. If the price was a lot of work and a few missed shots, I was OK with that.

listen to your body, and warm up with purpose.

Liberia is a country on the “Pepper Coast,” which in many ways mirrors the United States. While it has not been easy, the willingness of its dedicated, hardworking people has never subsided. Hopefully their endeavor to obtain a more perfect country will continue and perhaps the day will come when they can once again take the lead in Africa to find a brighter future. During the mid-1950’s I witnessed the effects of the sudden affluence that came with the mining of gold and blood diamonds in the interior mountains of Liberia and Sierra Leonne. Although driven out of Sierra Leonne in 1954, the De Beers cartel set up a covert purchasing office in Monrovia. By 1956, there were thousands of illegal miners from both sides of the international border selling their diamonds and gold to anyone interested at places like the French Hotel on Ashmun Street or the American Bar at Mamba Point. It was always difficult to know the value of the mostly industrial diamonds, wrapped a dirty handkerchief or the glitter of what appeared to be gold in laterite clay at the bottom of a tin can. Of course there were also con-men who had nothing more than broken pieces of coke bottles to sell. It was a time when fortunes were made and lives were lost. Needless to say that Liberia was and most likely still is a risky place to be! Now, many of the lower grade diamonds from Liberia are sold directly to dealers in Sierra Leone but the more valuable stones valued at $500,000 or more, which are usually found in Sierra Leone, are smuggled into Liberia to avoid a 15% Sierra Leone tax. Sometimes diamonds are traded for gold but it’s a risky business that frequently cost people their money and sometimes even their lives.

I envisioned Andy tied down to the kitchen table covered in green mambas. That probably wasn’t very angelic of me. Still…

Kobe Bryant singlehandedly changed the way society regarded how to approach challenges. His name became synonymous with an anti-failure state of mind, the “Mamba mentality”.

Scales on this Green Mamba help it hide in the grass. Snakes have scales that come in many colors. The scales on the snake's stomach help it move. The different colored scales on top of the snake help it hide.

I always found that short 15-minute catnaps gave me all the energy I’d need for peak performance.

Cat,

utah the next night. Still, i

If you really want to be great at something, you have to truly care about it. If you want to be great in a particular area, you have to obsess over it. A lot of people say they want to be great, but they’re not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness. They have other concerns, whether important or not, and they spread themselves out. That’s totally fine. After all, greatness is not for everybody.