The two saddest moments of my life were when my mother died and when I was told I couldn't play football for the Colts anymore.

- Art Donovan

Both sides of my family had come from Ireland in the 19th century for the same reason: There was nothing to eat over there. Since then, I've tried to make up for the potato famine by making the potato the only vegetable that passes these lips.

- Art Donovan

I don't eat vegetables. I only eat food like cheeseburgers, Spam, hot dogs and pizza.

- Art Donovan

I never met a cold cut I didn't like.

- Art Donovan

I guess telling stories is an art. I never looked at it that way. I just started talking, and everyone started laughing. So I kept talking, and they kept laughing.

- Art Donovan

I was 17 pounds when I was born. My mother couldn't walk for three weeks.

- Art Donovan

People tell me if I don't eat vegetables, I'm going to get scurvy. Well, what the hell. But I was never overweight as a player. There was a clause in my contract that said I had to weigh in at 270 every Friday morning. I always made it. I'd have dinner on Monday, and then I wouldn't eat until Friday.

- Art Donovan

I have no ax to grind. I was lucky. I played. How many guys play high school, college football never play pro football?

- Art Donovan

You know you're big when you sit in the bathtub and the water in the toilet rises.

- Art Donovan

I wouldn't want to go back over my life. I've done it all. I wouldn't have wanted to miss the Marine Corps. I wouldn't have wanted to miss the war. I wouldn't have missed college. Or playin' for the Colts. I got all the money I need. Five children. I got a truck. I have no regrets whatsoever.

- Art Donovan

I tell people Baltimore is lucky to be rid of the Colts, they're so lousy, but I don't mean it.

- Art Donovan

I went to college to play football, not to study it.

- Art Donovan

I'm not like some guys who, if the Ravens lose, are ready to jump off the top of M&M Stadium. There are other things in life besides pro football.

- Art Donovan

I came to my first Colts training camp in July of 1950, and it was murder, absolute murder. We had a coach named Clem Crow who must have been nuts. You got to remember that I'd been a Marine, had gone through basic training and spent 26 months in the Pacific during WWII, but the Marine drill instructors had nothing on Clem.

- Art Donovan

There's a lady up in heaven who must be very proud of the way the people in Baltimore have treated her boy from the Bronx.

- Art Donovan

Broke my femur on a cruise with my wife in Italy. I'd walked back to my cabin after dinner with half a plate of spaghetti when I leaned in to open the door. Turns out it was already open, so I fell flat on my face like something from the Keystone Kops.

- Art Donovan