“For me, I’m in the driver’s seat; I’m No. 1 in the world. I’ve won the last couple of meetings, and I’ve won the big tournaments lately. Whoever comes, I’ll try to beat him. But it’s almost up to me to decide who’s my rival, isn’t it?”

I never waited 27 years, because 27 years ago I was just born. My parents never told me, ‘If you don’t win Roland Garros we take you to the orphanage.

The one thing you can do for sure is push the luck on your side.

You can be stubborn and successful or you can give it up a bit and change things around. For me it’s important to have a bit of both.

I’m not the kind of guy who wakes up angry.

I am a sucker for those old traditional places, and Rome is as good as it gets, particularly when you throw in Italian food.

My game is a lot about footwork. If I move well, I play well.

My family is the thing I miss most on the tour.

I always knew I had something special.

Confidence? Are you kidding me? I mean, please. Look, some players grow up and play like that. I remember losing junior matches. Just being down 5-2 in the third, and they all just start slapping shots.

It is always in my mind still that I can crush anybody. That’s not an issue. But I think that is the same for most athletes. If you don’t believe you can win tournaments anymore, then you can’t do it.

You always want to win. That is why you play tennis, because you love the sport and try to be the best you can at it.

I always had the dream that, once I became No 1 in the world, that if I had a child I hoped I would have it early enough so the child can see me playing.

I have a very strong opinion. I’m absolutely against it. I’m against the challenge system. I’m for the way it is right now. Don’t change that.

I have learnt to be even more patient.

I am thinking more and more about what I want to and can do after my days as an active athlete. Thoughts like family and marriage also cross my mind more and more often.

One or two years ago, I didn’t know who I was on court and I used to swear a lot. But now I’ve learned how to cope and can therefore win 10 matches in a row. I want to be remembered as a good player rather than an idiot on court.

Something big is going on. I’m talking about a society that refuses to allow injustice just to persist without making our voices heard and without organizing to bring about effective change through our voting system.

You get a bigger paycheck if you are the hero. There is something good about it.

In my career, whether it’s a big or a small movie, when I’ve worked on something for a long time, like [Ivan] Drago in Rocky IV, they start to take on a life of their own.

The two biggest sellers in any bookstore are the cookbooks and the diet books. The cookbooks tell you how to prepare the food, and the diet books tell you how not to eat any of it!

An actor should never be larger than the film he’s in.

Big business is not dangerous because it is big, but because its bigness is an unwholesome inflation created by privileges and exemptions which it ought not to enjoy.

I swear, the bigger your muscles get, the duller you are. You become fascinated with carbs and protein and ripped abs and things that are just not interesting at all.

In my opinion, the biggest achievement was by Shankar-Jaikishan. With Raj Kapoor’s ‘Barsaat,’ they changed the way we looked at playback singing.