“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.”

I have become convinced that we blacks spend too much time on the playing field and too little time in libraries.

I don’t want to be remembered for my tennis accomplishments.

You learn about equality in history and civics, but you find out life is not really like that.

We must believe in the power of education. We must respect just laws. We must love ourselves, our old and or young, our women as well as our men.

A couple of times a day I sit quietly and visualize my body fighting the AIDS virus. It’s the same as me sitting and seeing myself hit the perfect serve. I did that often when I was an athlete.

When we were together, I loved you deeply and you gave me so much happiness I can never repay you.

One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.

True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.

Life is like a tennis game. You can’t win without serving.

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

Wherever I am when you feel sick at heart and weary of life, or when you stumble and fall and don’t know if you can get up again, think of me. I will be watching and smiling and cheering you on.

I take the good with the bad, and I try to face them both with as much calm and dignity as I can muster.

We must reach out our hand in friendship and dignity both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy.

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

In America you’re conditioned to regard everything as a contest. You have to make the Ten Best Dressed List, win this, win that. It drives me nuts sometimes. Who cares, for Christ’s sake?

Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.

We’re all together as a country and as a family.

The white man is not indigenous to Africa. Africa is for Africans. Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans.

As athletes, we stand on the shoulders of giants. We must continue their fight on behalf our community.

Black people need some peace, white people need some peace, and we’re gonna have to fight, we’re gonna have to struggle, we’re gonna have to struggle relentlessly to bring about some peace.

When growing up, I saw segregation. I saw racial discrimination. I saw those signs that said white men, colored men. White women, colored women. White waiting. And I didn’t like it.

You don’t fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water. We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity. We’re not gonna fight capitalism with Black capitalism. We’re gonna fight capitalism with socialism. Socialism is the people. If you’re afraid of socialism, you’re afraid of yourself.

I don’t want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.

Changing your name is not gonna change our set of arrangements.