"Rugby is a game for barbarians played by gentlemen. Football is a game for gentlemen played by barbarians."
- Oscar Wilde
"They've kicked it away again, for God's sake!"
- Brian Moore
"It's the first time I've been cold for seven years. I was never cold playing rugby league."
- Jonathan Davies
"If the game is run properly as a professional game, you do not need 57 old farts running rugby."
- Will Carling
"I like to think I play rugby as it should be played - there are no yellow or red cards in my collection - but I cannot say I'm an angel."
- Jonny Wilkinson
"My goodness, that wee ball's gone so high there'll be snow on it when it comes down."
- Bill McLaren
"Rugby is a hooligans game played by gentlemen."
- Winston Churchill
"They don’t rate us. They don’t respect us. The only way to be rated is to stick one on them, to get right up in their faces and turn them back."
- Jim Telfer (1997)
"After an All-Blacks surprise loss to the French in the 1999 Rugby World Cup: “The French are predictably unpredictable."
- Andrew Mehrtens (After a New Zealand surprise loss to France in the 1999 Rugby World Cup)
"It feels like we are the older brother and we have to make sure we beat our younger brother. We cannot let our younger brother get the better of us."
- Ben Foden (ahead of his side's 2011 Six Nations clash with Wales)
"I'm going to Wales, and I'm leaving tonight." - Graham Henry
"I'm still an amateur, of course, but I became rugby's first millionaire five years ago."
- David Campese
"I am hoping not to come across him again. He's a freak - and the sooner he goes away the better"
- Will Carling (on Jomah Lomu)
"You can take rugby seriously, but you must not take yourself too seriously." - Eddie Butler
"Don’t swear, now, you’re on telly, mun." - Nigel Owens (to New Zealand’s Dan Carter)
"Sit back, enjoy and criticise and be like Clive Woodward and get a job on the television. That’s my dream."
- Eddie Jones (in responce to what might be his next role after Japan)
"Shane who?" - Ben Cohen
"Remember that rugby is a team game; all 14 of you make sure you pass the ball to Jonah."
- An anonymous fax (New Zealand rugby team fax in 1995 before they went out to play England)
"Get your retaliation in first." - Willie John McBride (to his teammates on the 1974 Lions tour to South Africa)
"There are days like this that many rugby players never have, they never experience it. It is special. Because you’ll meet each other in the street in 30 years time and there will just be a look. And you’ll know just how special some days in your life are."
- Ian McGeechan (addressing British Lions squad before a Durban Test match)
"I was the best club hooker in the world but I never got picked for Australia, because I was never going to be an international player as long as my backside pointed to the ground. Club rugby is club rugby."
- Eddie Jones
"You can go to the end of time, the last World Cup in the history of mankind, and the All Blacks will be favourites for it."
- Phil Kearns (Former Australia captain)
"In my eyes, seeing the fatties dominate a scrum is just as beautiful as watching Cheslin Kolbe or Finn Russell."
- Rassie Erasmus
"We’ve lost seven of our last eight matches; the only team that we’ve beaten is Western Samoa. Good job we didn’t play the whole of Samoa."
- Gareth Davies (Former Welsh rugby player (1989))
"I thought I would have a quiet pint and about 17 noisy ones."
- Gareth Chilcott
"My sport was my comfort. The routine, the camaraderie, the team... everyone's around you. After rugby you're on your own."
- Gareth Thomas
"Me? As England’s answer to Jonah Lomu? Joanna Lumley, more likely."
- Damian Hopley (London Wasps and England player in 1995)
"If you don't feel those butterflies in your stomach now...when we walk out that door, they turn to dragons. Because they get bigger and they get stronger and we use them. And those dragons are going to breathe fire."
- Scott Quinnell (coach in School of Hard Knocks)
"In the weight room, I do what I have to do to be ready for the weekend, no more. I’m a rugby player, an out-half, not a bodybuilder."
- Finn Russell
"There goes my hope for selection."
- Danny Cipriani (reaction to Eddie Jones being named Barbarians coach)
"There’s no doubt about it, he’s a big ba***rd." - Gavin Hastings (assessment of New Zealand star Jonah Lomu)
"I gathered the boys together in a huddle at the final whistle of our defeat by Wales and told them to remember the hurt they were feeling in that moment."
- Chris Robshaw (after England’s defeat in Cardiff, 2013)
"I’m the referee, I’m not a coach. You will probably find the solution with your coach, who is more able to tell you what you have to do than I am."
- Romain Poite (answer to James Haskell in 2017 Italy match)
"The body will do what the mind says." - Richie McCaw .
"You've got to get your first tackle in early, even if it's late."
- Ray Gravell
"The relationship between the Welsh and the English is based on trust and understanding. They don't trust us and we don't understand them."
- Dudley Wood (Secretary of the England Rugby Football Union, 1989)
"I don’t really want followers, to be honest. That’s what Twitter is for. I want people who can make their own decisions and look after their own departments."
- Alun Wyn Jones
"Wales. Who knows Wales? Are there any Welsh people here? So it’s this little s*** place that has got three million people. Three million!"
- Eddie Jones (on Wales)
"Of all the teams in the Six Nations, the Welsh players dislike the Irish the most and they are all very motivated to be playing on Saturday."
- Warren Gatland
"It takes two hours to get ready – hot bath, shave my legs and face, moisturize, put fake tan on and do my hair – which takes a bit of time."
- Gavin Henson
"I don’t think we’ve met before, but I’m the referee…This is not soccer."
- Nigel Owens
"Let’s be the best at everything that requires no talent. chasing back, supporting teammates, projecting positivity."
- Paul O’Connell (2013)
"Arrogance is only bad when you lose. If you are winning and you are arrogant it is self-belief."
- Eddie Jones
"We need to look at what we are. We’re not England. We’re not New Zealand. We’re Scotland and we’ve got to look at what we can do to win games."
- Jim Hamilton (2003)
"There is no such thing as a lucky, dodgy, narrow, tight, or jammy win over England. They are all glorious."
- Doddie Weir
"Ballroom dancing is a contact sport. Rugby is a collision sport."
- Heyneke Mayer
"I am who I am. I’m going to play the way that I play and whether you like it or not, that’s me."
- Quade Cooper
"I might give him a hug, as long as it doesn’t get too awkward. We wouldn’t really be huggers really. It’s more of a high five or a handshake but we’ll see what happens."
- Paul O’Connell (on taking over from Brian O’Driscoll as captain)
"If all the wild horsemen of the apocalypse came around the corner, O’Mahony would charge straight back at them."
- Will Greenwood (about Peter O'Mahoney)
"Dive like that again and come back here in two weeks and play. Not again. Watch it."
- Nigel Owens (to Scotland's Stuart Hogg playing at St James' Park football ground)