It's really impossible for athletes to grow up. On the one hand, you're a child, still playing a game. But on the other hand, you're a superhuman hero that everyone dreams of being. No wonder we have such a hard time understanding who we are.
Victory is fleeting. Losing is forever.
Winning is very tangible, it's very exciting, it's very pleasing, but it's momentary. If you can do things that last, that each generation can build upon, then that's when you're cooking.
Champions take responsibility. When the ball is coming over the net, you can be sure I want the ball.
It is very hard to be a female leader. While it is assumed that any man, no matter how tough, has a soft side . . . any female leader is assumed to be one-dimensional.
Ever since that day when I was 11 years old, and I wasn't allowed in a photo because I wasn't wearing a tennis skirt, I knew that I wanted to change the sport.
I think self-awareness is probably the most important thing towards being a champion.
No one changes the world who isn't obsessed.
I . . . like being successful. I somehow always knew that I would succeed. I had a great sense of destiny from the time I was very young.
In the seventies we had to make it acceptable for people to accept girls and women as athletes. We had to make it okay for them to be active. Those were much scarier times for females in sports.
I've never cared that much for cementing my place in history. Sports is so transitory, so ephemeral. It just seems like so much nonsense comparing me to Helen Wills Moody or Suzanne Lenglen or anybody else from some other time. One lesson you learn from sports is that life goes on without you.
I thought it would set us back 50 years if I didn't win that match. It would ruin the women's tour and affect all women's self esteem.
I will tell you King's First Law of Recognition: You never get it when you want it, and then when it comes, you get too much.
The trouble with being number one in the world - in anything - is that it takes a certain mentality to attain that position, and that is something of a driving, perfectionist attitude, so that once you do achieve number one, you don't relax and enjoy
Ladies, here's a hint; if you're playing against a friend who has big boobs, bring her to the net and make her hit backhand volleys. That's the hardest shot for the well-endowed.
A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.
No matter how tough, no matter what kind of outside pressure, no matter how many bad breaks along the way, I must keep my sights on the final goal, to win, win, win -- and with more love and passion than the world has ever witnessed in any performance.
Champions keep playing until they get it right.
The main thing is to care. Care very hard, even if it is only a game you are playing.
Tennis is a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquillity.