My whole life, I've been trying to make people proud.
I don't want to play forever. I want to give everything I can now and then walk away knowing I gave everything. The example I think of is Barry Sanders. He was such a great player, and he left when he was still on top. I want that to be me.
A reputation takes years and years and years to build, and it takes one press of a button to ruin it. Don't let that happen to you. You've done so much work; you've put in so much effort. Don't let one moment ruin your entire life because you wanted to be funny or you were mad or because you had a mood.
People always ask, 'Man, why don't you come out and enjoy it? Why don't you celebrate? Why don't you have any fun?' My fun is Sundays. Anybody can go to the club. You don't have to be good at going to the club to go to the club. You have to be good to be playing on Sundays, and to me, that's what's cool.
There's gonna be people that don't like you, regardless. But I take on the mentality of, 'Look, I'm gonna do whatever I want to do. If people don't like, they don't like it.'
My parents would definitely be my childhood heroes.
I obviously would love to have a girlfriend, but a girlfriend deserves so much of your time and energy. And she deserves to be treated like a princess because that's how you should treat your girls. And if I can't give them that time and that devotion because of my dedication to football, then I don't feel like I should almost waste their time.
I'm not strict on my calorie count; I just pay attention to my body.
My dad's a firefighter, so I know what it's like for policemen and firefighters to be on their own on Christmas Day.
I want to go out and chase greatness. That's all I want to do.
Over the years, I've learned a lot about nutrition and about myself, so it's a lot more based on feel. I stopped putting a number on it because people were analyzing it too much.
My mom taught me from a young age to give back and volunteer any chance you get. It was something that I knew, if I made the NFL, I would financially have the ability to do.
You can find just about everything on my iPod from Eminem to Zac Brown to Justin Timberlake to One Direction. Everything is on there.
Trust me, I would love to have a wife and kids. I would very much enjoy that. But I also know that you have to be in the right place to do that.
My family is a middle-class family. When I grew up and learned how much it actually cost for us to play hockey, I could not believe that my parents let us play as long as they did.
One of the things I have to do, and I'm working on it, is making sure I enjoy the ride along the way. I have to remind myself, 'Take a look around, look at things, and enjoy it.'
I respect every guy that has walked away. I think every single guy in this league makes his own decision, and that's perfectly fine. The reason I respect that and the reason I think every guy has his own way of dealing with things is because, in my personal opinion, I know what I'm getting into.
It's hard to understand the life that I live and rationalize some of the things that I do. I don't need someone questioning every move that I make, asking me why I don't just relax. When there's no one asking me those types of questions... to me, it's peaceful.
Each year, I write out a goal sheet with what I expect. If I showed anybody else my goal sheet, they would have said I was crazy.
My dad was a firefighter for almost 30 years. My mom worked her way up from a secretary to vice president of her own company. They taught me to work hard for everything and take nothing for granted. That's how I play.
What I remember most about high school are the memories I created with my friends.
Everybody has a job to do, and you just know that every day you have to do what it takes to get there. Of course, everybody has those days where you don't feel like doing it. I'm just like anybody else in that respect. But there's a difference between not feeling like doing it and not doing it period.
I grew up in Wisconsin loving hockey. I mean, I started when I was three years old on skates.
My goal is I want to create the 20-20-20 club: 20 sacks, 20 tackles for loss, 20 batted balls.
I'm not ashamed of it, but people would think I'm ashamed of Bieber. I got Bieber on my iPod.
I never want to let a day go by without having done something to get a little better.
When I picture myself after football, it's down home, coaching high school football, just a relaxing, normal life.
Teams are always hitting me in the gut, trying to grab me when I jump and stuff like that. But I expect it.
It's a very violent game, and bodies take a beating, so you want to make sure you do everything you can to get your body back. It's just something you have to do.
I don't get bothered by fans.
There are games where I go a whole game without saying a word. There are games where I'm talking the whole game. It really depends on the mood and vibe that I'm in that day.
If there's ever any point in my life where I could meet Jennifer Aniston, I think that'd be pretty incredible!
My cheat meals aren't even that exciting.
In the off-season, I train twice a day, five times a week with my trainer. Then, there's always massages and neuromuscular therapy worked in there as well on different days.
When it comes down to that moment, when it's me against you, you know in your head whether you worked hard enough. You can try to lie to yourself. You can try to tell yourself that you put in the time. But you know - and so do I.
If you're going to nap, make sure you have a proper chunk of time blocked out. I'm not one of these guys that does the 15-20 minute nap. I don't play those games. I'm, like, an hour minimum. I'm not gonna lay down unless I know I have at least an hour.
Every year, I take 10 of my best friends from high school on a trip. That's kind of my way for saying thanks to them for being so loyal, for keeping me honest, and for just being great friends throughout this craziness.
There's plenty of days when I don't want to eat chicken breast and broccoli and rice, but I know what I have to do, and I know the sacrifice I have to make.
The way I look at it is that somebody in the world, no matter what your field is - teacher, violinist, football player - has to be the best. Why not me?
I live with the fact that while I am playing, I am going to give everything I have, and I will live with those consequences.
As long as I've known music, Bose has been the company to listen to. They're a lot of fun to work with, but also being able to associate yourself with such a high-quality product is great.
You have to find the right situation, and you have to be in that right mindset where you can give everything you have to that. Because whatever I do, I want to be the best at. I want to be the best husband. I want to be the best father.
I know that I have probably an eight- to 10-year window in this league, and if I want to be what I say I want to be, then I have to commit myself 100 percent.
A sack is way better than any nightclub. A touchdown is way better than any bar experience I've ever had.
Basically, I want that relationship where we have that love. I love her so much, and she loves me so much that it's just - you want that relationship where you look into the girl's eyes, and you know that she's everything you've ever wanted. When I find that, I'm going to get it!
If you want to be remembered as great, if you want to be a legend, you have to go out there every single day and do stuff.
In Wisconsin, style-wise, it was all about bundling up, maybe wearing a hat and forgetting about your hair.
I want to be the defensive player to break the MVP barrier. I want to break barriers. I want to do things when people tell me I can't.
Houston is kind of a melting pot. There are many different cultures and ethnicities represented out there, even on my team. It's really cool: you'll see so many different things.
