“You come to realize that life is short, and you have to step up. Don’t feel sorry for me. Much is expected of those who are strong.”

You’ve got to get to the stage in life where going for it is more important than winning or losing.

I keep sailing on in this middle passage. I am sailing into the wind and the dark. But I am doing my best to keep my boat steady and my sails full.

I guess I started too early because I just thought it was something fun to do.

I keep sailing on in this middle passage. I am sailing into the wind and the dark. But I am doing my best to keep my boat steady and my sails full.

The ideal attitude is to be physically loose and mentally tight.

If I don’t ask “Why me?” after my victories, I cannot ask “Why me?” after my setbacks and disasters.

I spent many, many hours in libraries. Libraries became courts of last resort, as it were.

Having grown up in a segregated environment in the south I know what it’s like to be stepped on, I know what it’s like also to see some black hero do well in the face of adversity.

There is a syndrome in sports called ‘paralysis by analysis.’

I accepted the face that as much as I want to lead others, and love to be around other people, in some essential way, I am something of a loner.

I’m learning to use others’ weaknesses. I don’t hammer a man’s soft spot constantly, because he may strengthen it. I just save it as a trump up my sleeve for moments when I really need a point.

I’m learning to use others’ weaknesses. I don’t hammer a man’s soft spot constantly, because he may strengthen it. I just save it as a trump up my sleeve for moments when I really need a point.

Sometimes, a defeat can be more beautiful and satisfying than certain victories. The English have a point in insisting that it matters not who won or lost, but how you played the game.

This is my career highlight. Getting to the fourth round in the U.S. Open in my first year in the U.S. Open and first year on the tour.

When bright young minds can’t afford college, America pays the price.

My potential is more than can be expressed within the bounds of my race or ethnic identity.

In serving the wicked, expect no reward, and be thankful if you escape injury for your pains.

Freedom is to ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.

We had hundreds of thousands of people all dedicated to doing the perfect job, and I think they did about as well as anyone could ever have expected.

To wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect.

I never expected to be anybody important.

Wisdom means understanding without any doubt that circumstances do not rise to meet our expectations. Events happen as they may. People behave as they will.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself.