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

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

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

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.

Drummed into me, above all, by my dad, by the whole family, was that without your good name, you would be nothing.

Trust has to be earned, and should come only after the passage of time.

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.

When people begin to ignore human dignity, it will not be long before they begin to ignore human rights.

There are those who believe justice and dignity are reserved only for some people. Young men have died in police custody, and the growing heel of poverty has worn down harder on children of color…We must fight back.

Work is about more than making a living, as vital as that is. It’s fundamental to human dignity, to our sense of self-worth as useful, independent, free people.

Be mild with the mild, shrewd with the crafty, confiding to the honest, rough to the ruffian, and a thunderbolt to the liar. But in all this, never be unmindful of your own dignity.

Perhaps we just need little reminders from time to time that we are already dignified, deserving, worthy.

It is a good idea sometimes to think of the importance and dignity of our every-day duties. It keeps them from being so tiresome; besides, others are apt take us at our own valuation.

I would rather be alone with dignity than in a relationship that requires me to sacrifice my self respect.

Here I am,’ I thought, ‘back from the jungle, back from the ruins. Here, where wealth is no longer gorgeous and power has no dignity.