Any active sportsman has to be very focused; you've got to be in the right frame of mind. If your energy is diverted in various directions, you do not achieve the results. I need to know when to switch on and switch off: and the rest of the things happen around that. Cricket is in the foreground, the rest is in the background.

More Quotes by Sachin Tendulkar

There are over 200 million illiterate women in India. This low literacy negatively impacts not just their lives but also their families' and the country's economic development. A girl's lack of education also has a negative impact on the health and well-being of her children.

But eventually it is a game of cricket.

I hate losing and cricket being my first love, once I enter the ground it's a different zone altogether and that hunger for winning is always there.

I have never tried to compare myself to anyone else.

I am not thinking too far ahead, just want to take it one thing at a time.

At the start of my career, when I used to toss and turn at night, I was fighting that feeling and wanting to go to sleep. Now I know that's normal, so I'll just get up and watch TV or something. I know it's just my subconscious mind getting ready for a game.