Kessel Quotes

#1. I remember first seeing Barney Kessel, in the 1940s, standing on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, in his cowboy boots, sun glasses and hipster threads, holding his guitar case man, you just knew that cat could wail!'

Anita O'Day

#2. Barney Kessel is definitely the best guitar player in this world, or any other world.

George Harrison

#3. Barney Kessel is incredible. He's just amazing ... Nobody can play guitar like that

John Lennon

#4. A vessel swift of flight, though say'st? Hast thou
Not heard of the Millenn'um Falcon, Sir?
'Tis but the ship that hath the Kessel run
Accomplish'd in twelve parsecs,

Ian Doescher

#5. The Millennium Falcon." She could not keep the wonder out of her voice. "This is the ship that made the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs." "Twelve parsecs.

Alan Dean Foster

#6. Barney Kessel was 'Mr. Guitar,' the foremost jazz guitarist of his generation. He had an amazing imagination, his solos were incredible, he swung his tail off, he was a heck of an arranger and could out-read anybody ...

Larry Coryell

#7. My favorite country blues player was Big Bill Broonzy. City blues was Freddie King, but I liked them all - Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Ralph Willis, Lonnie Johnson, Brownie McGhee and the three Kings, B.B., Albert and Freddie. Jazz-wise, I listened to Django, Barney Kessel and Wes Montgomery.

Alvin Lee

#8. Coaches need to have the ability of tact - to teach the team to rub out mistakes rather than to rub them in.

John Kessel

#9. The pessimistic coach complains about the play. The optimistic coach expects it to change. The realistic coach adjusts what he can control.

John Kessel

#10. There are three choices in life and sport - either you do it, you don't do it or you think about it. Most humans think about it. We will do it.

John Kessel

#11. He signed his work .. you could always tell when it was Herb Ellis playing

Barney Kessel

#12. You cannot turn your winning attitude on when you think you 'need it.' You must work on it every day, every practice, every match - win or lose. Focus on playing to win, not playing to lose, for there is a season of difference between the two.

John Kessel

#13. Kafka's inevitable tropism for the allegorical puts him in marked opposition to the realism that dominated the literary world of the first half of the 20th century.

John Kessel

#14. Too many coaches have too big a mouth and not big enough ears.

John Kessel

#15. Ethics is for people with full bellies.

John Kessel

#16. There is nothing less important in life than the score after one game of a two out of three game match.

John Kessel

#17. One of the influences of Kafka over later writers is not so much in the content of his work as in its form.

John Kessel

#18. Playing scales is like a boxer skipping rope or punching a bag. It's not the thing in itself; it's preparatory to the activity

Barney Kessel

#19. Players need you to care, especially when they do not deserve it.

John Kessel

#20. Is Shimmer a floor wax or a dessert topping? Is an electron a wave or a particle? Slipstream tells us that the answer is yes.

John Kessel

#21. Coaching is something that takes place only when learning does. No matter what you are doing in your practices, if your players are not learning something significant, you're really not coaching. If a player fails in a game, the coach may have failed in practice.

John Kessel

#22. The sport of volleyball will never give you something that you can't handle; whether you do handle it is another question.

John Kessel

#23. There are two basic situations in volleyball - either you got the ball or you don't.

John Kessel

#24. The kind of player who has turned his game around, he used to be lousy and lazy and now he is lazy and lousy.

John Kessel

#25. Use volleyball quotes to motivate your teammates to play hard.

John Kessel

#26. An advantage to volleyball is that you have a scoreboard to tell how you have done as a team. The thing is, in life there is no scoreboard, at least not one that you can see.

John Kessel

#27. Charlie Christian showed me a lot, and was a great help, but even then, I realised that if I was going to make it, it was no use copying Charlie

Barney Kessel

#28. The mainstream media perpetuates the notion that women should focus entirely on a static image of a perfect body as the end goal. There are no messages about the process, the active body, how it makes us feel in that moment.

Anna Kessel

#29. I'm not interested in a marketable product: I'm interested in what I know from my life experience to be standards of excellence

Barney Kessel

#30. Trying simply provides an excuse for not doing.

John Kessel

#31. Alter strategies and tactics, but never your principles.

John Kessel

#32. Surely we want to get to a point where women can be strong and powerful and not sexy. Or only sexy when they feel like it, not as a requirement to getting media coverage or being valued.

Anna Kessel

#33. Volleyball is like going to church ... many attend, but few understand.

John Kessel

#34. Play your heart out each game, so you can look your teammates in the eyes and ask, without saying it, 'I played full out, did you?'

John Kessel

#35. Don't ask yourself what you did wrong; ask yourself what you did right.

John Kessel

#36. Coaches must be flexible, for then they won't get bent out of shape.

John Kessel

#37. Profit by your own mistakes and profit by the mistakes of others. The referees were calling ball handling violations like they were getting commissions.

John Kessel

#38. Nothing makes a player more productive than the last minute.

John Kessel

#39. Kids on a team are like flowers in a bouquet, there is always one that wants to face a different way than the arranger desires.

John Kessel

#40. Work hard - beat out half the team. Be committed, play fair as a team player - Beat out another quarter of the team. The last quarter is your desire and beliefs, and where you are playing.

John Kessel

#41. A coach must sometimes see players with his heart, and hear them with his eyes.

John Kessel

#42. False teammates are like our shadows. They keep close to us when we are all walking in the sunshine, but they are gone the instant we just go into the shade, let alone the darkness.

John Kessel

#43. Study hard, practice hard, play ferociously.

John Kessel

#44. When I joined the trio, it was as if I was capable of driving a sports car at 60, but Ray Brown and Oscar Peterson just kept pressing the pedal down, and I was trying to control the car at 80!

Barney Kessel

#45. Since my first encounter with Kafka's writing, I've been interested in a quality that, while he was alive, stood in the way of his achieving a large reputation: his allegory.

John Kessel

#46. Volleyball rules are simple. If it is on the floor, pick it up and get it into the air. If it is in the air, keep it off the floor. -

John Kessel

#47. Focus on winning the contest with yourself.

John Kessel

#48. Think positive, real volleyball happens too fast to think any other way.

John Kessel

#49. Shared victory is a double victory, shared defeat is half-defeat.

John Kessel

#50. I am here to give my players the little push they need, just like they needed long ago, when first learning the art of the swing. All you needed then was a little push, and quickly you were pumping away, flying higher and higher, without any more help from the 'coach.'

John Kessel

#51. Less effort in this game makes more results.

John Kessel

#52. The conventional Aristotelian plot proceeds by means of a protagonist, an antagonist, and a series of events comprising a rising action, climax and denouement.

John Kessel

#53. All bodies are different, all bodies have their own individual way of reacting to the work we make them do.

Anna Kessel

#54. Too many players are so afraid to do anything that they seldom venture to do anything.

John Kessel

#55. No jockey ever won a race by carrying the horse across the finish line; no coach ever won a volleyball match by touching the ball during play.

John Kessel

#56. You must allow your players to become the athletes they can be. Don't make them into anything just to become the kind of winners fans, friends and others think they must be.

John Kessel

#57. Make your mistakes with confidence. It is the only way you are going to learn anything. Never be afraid to do a skill, no matter how simple or hard it may seem someone has done it, and so can you, With enough committed practice and confidence.

John Kessel

#58. In volleyball there are many reasons for errors but not a single excuse.

John Kessel

#59. Being left-handed has its advantages in volleyball. Few people know enough about your spike and serve to give you advice.

John Kessel

#60. Most volleyball players are made in the winter, spring and summer, for come fall, everyone practices equal time.

John Kessel

#61. Never back down, never fear anyone, for the best opponents will help you to play your best.

John Kessel

#62. It is ok to err, but it is not ok to stop playing; it is ok to lose, but it is not ok to give up.

John Kessel

#63. There is no such thing as 'staying in shape;' you either work to get better, or you allow yourself to get worse.

John Kessel

#64. I don't know if this is a stumbling block, but I had a real setback when I won a Nebula Award for the first story I ever had nominated for a Nebula in 1982. And you might think that was a good thing - and it was a wonderful thing, I don't regret it a bit. But I was sort of discombobulated by it.

John Kessel

#65. Never mishandle hope or self-confidence - those are elements of life, not just a game.

John Kessel

#66. If there is something a coach might wish to see changed in a player or team, the first place to check and see if it could not be done better is in yourself.

John Kessel

#67. The wise coach takes all the heat when his players lose, and gives them all the credit when they win.

John Kessel

#68. The meaning of volleyball, is to give meaning to volleyball, as the meaning of coaching is to give meaning to coaching.

John Kessel

#69. Perform the best you can for when you find that you perform your best, there is still so much more in volleyball to do better, harder, faster, and smarter. It is just like when you go for a long journey. You go as far as you can see, and when you get there, you can see farther.

John Kessel

#70. I think too often we forget that girls can like sport; we are not biologically programmed to detest it, we are - in the main - conditioned against it. But shouldn't we try to change that?

Anna Kessel

#71. If you are serious about volleyball, the only months to stop playing are those without a vowel.

John Kessel

#72. You have to learn every day. You can't be playing every day, but you can be practicing. If you cannot be practicing with a net and others daily, you still can be learning about the game by reading, watching and imaging. You must learn every day, if you want to be a real volleyball player. -

John Kessel

#73. Good players win volleyball games for you, not tall players.

John Kessel

#74. Just as we tell women today to vote, in honour of the suffragettes who campaigned for the right to do so, we owe it to these female sports pioneers to draw inspiration from their stories, to continue the fight.

Anna Kessel

#75. You can be harsh on your players and still coach, but it is easier when you are kind to them.

John Kessel

#76. Most of us are referees at heart; we like to call throws and errors on someone else.

John Kessel

#77. There must be a dozen films now based on Philip K. Dick novels or stories, far more than any other published science fiction writer. He's sort of become the go-to guy for weird science fiction notions.

John Kessel

#78. Charlie Christians' contributions to the electric guitar are as big as Thomas Edisons' contributions to the world ...

Barney Kessel

#79. Kafka is not interested in documenting the manners and mores of any particular place; he is not interested in probing the psyche of individual characters.

John Kessel