The Best of Barkley

I recently saw a list of the "50 Greatest Charles Barkley quotes". I pulled my favorites from that list, and tried to rank those. I couldn't; there's just too many good ones. So here is my list in no particular order except for number one, which is unquestionably my favorite. Enjoy.


* "We better not be doing the Bulls this year. Man, they suck! Bunch of high school kids with $70 million contracts. Damn! I hate my mother for having me too soon."

* After retiring from the NBA: "I'm just what America needs - another unemployed black man."

* Ernie Johnson, Barkley's moderator on TNT: "Did they recognize you in South Dakota?"
Charles: "Yes, they did. It was easy because I was the only black person there. When they see me walking down the street they say 'There he goes again'. And when I come back the next year they say 'He's back yawl!'"

* After Da Peja won the 3 Point Contest at All Star Weekend: "Kenny said it was going to be an all-international night. I want to know which international brother is going to win the slam dunk contest."

* On the Enron investiagtion by Congress: "Almost all those politicians took money from Enron, and there they are holding hearings. That's like O.J. Simpson getting in the Rae Carruth jury pool."

* "I had to explain to my daughter why that skank Monica Lewinski has an hour special on HBO this weekend."

* Ernie: "Auburn is a pretty good school. To graduate from there I suppose you really need to work hard and put forth maximum effort."
Charles: "20 pts and 10 rebounds will get you through also!"

* "Every time I think about changing a diaper, I run a little bit harder and a little bit faster to make sure I can afford a nanny until my daughter's old enough to take care of that herself."

* Ernie: "Did you graduate from Auburn?"
Charlie: "No, but I have a coupla people working for me who did."

* Before playing Angola with the Dream Team in 1992: "They're in a lot of trouble."

* On considering retirement before his last season: "I remember sitting down with the Rockets and saying, 'Yeah. I'm going to retire.' They said, 'Well, we'll give you $9 million.' And I said, 'You got a pen on you?'"

* "I know why his name is DMX. Because his real name is Earl. Imagine if his name was Earl The Rapper."

* "If you go out with a girl and they say she has a great personality, she's ugly. If they tell you a guy works hard, he can't play a lick. Same thing."

* After Kevin Garnett threw a ball into the crowd out of frustration, TNT showed footage of the man that got hit by the ball being taken away in a stretcher, with his daughter crying. Charles commented that players take passes to the face all the time. He topped it off by saying: "You know why that little girl's crying? It's because she's thinking 'my daddy's a wussy'".

* "I think that the team that wins game five will win the series. Unless we lose game five."

* Charles on Sam Cassell: "Phone Home." Later... "Sam Cassell is a good guy, but he's not going to wind up on the cover of GQ anytime soon."

* "They don't let many black people in the governor's mansion in Alabama unless they're cleaning."

* On the goal of the '92 Olympic Dream Team when playing Panama in the Tournament of the Americas: "To get the Canal back."

* "All I know is, as long as I led the Southeastern Conference in scoring, my grades would be fine."

* Barkley, a well documented poor defender while he was in the NBA: "Yeah Ernie, its called defense, I mean I wouldn't know anything about it personally, but I've heard about it through the grapevine."

* "Well, when I went off to college, the guys I used to hang with were pumping gas and voting Democrat. Today they're still pumping gas and voting Democrat. Guess the Democrats didn't do much for them."

* "When I was recruited at Auburn, they took me to a strip joint. When I saw those titties on Buffy, I knew that Auburn met my academic requirements."

* Barkley to 300+ pound perpetual disappointment Stanley Roberts: "Hey Stanley, you could be a great player if you learned just two words: I'm full."

* On Jerry Krause still being able to keep his job as GM of the Chicago Bulls: "Jerry Krause must have pictures of his boss's wife having sex with a monkey."

* During an Olympic Dream Team victory over Angola, in which they won 116-48, Charles got into a physical altercation with a member of Angola towards the end of the game. After the game: "Somebody hits me, I'm going to hit him back. Even if it does look like he hasn't eaten in a couple weeks. I thought he was going to pull a spear on me."

And finally, my favorite Charles Barkley quote of all time...

* A fight a drunk guy in a bar started with Charles ended up with the guy being tossed through a plate glass window. Naturally, he sued, and Charles had this exchange with the judge after asked if he had any regrets: "Yeah, I regret we weren't on a higher floor."

Ladies and gentlemen, the pure, unadulterated greatness of Charles Barkley.