“When you start from nothing, when you come from nothing, it makes you hungry. I am proud of where I came from and I know what I want. I want to win.”

Sometimes when you’re putting the work in it just seems so, so hard, and you never know when that work’s going to pay off.

I think it’s so cool to be tall. Even when I’m not wearing heels people tell me I’m tall and I always take it as a complement. The good thing is I can always see everybody in the room.

It’s nice to be one of the most beautiful people.

Since I was young, the artistic expression that fashion embodies has inspired me. It’s a way to communicate oneself.

It’s pretty hard being a tennis player and Mother Theresa at the same time and that’s just the way it is.

My style when I was younger was still unique to me. I didn’t necessarily dress by the trends, but I was always aware of what was trendy at the time and how I could apply it to my own sense of style.

I’ve been very competitive by nature from a young age, whether it was eating a bowl of pasta faster than somebody else, or always wanting to be the first one in line.

When I need to push myself, I think of all those nicely polished trophies waiting to be lifted up by the winner – and how that winner might be me.

I still love things that you don’t even need to pay for. Going to the beach and being around five of your friends and having a good time means so much more than going out and spending hundreds of dollars.

I’d like to have a family.

I definitely feel Russian inside, even when I’m in America I feel Russian.

I know many of you thought that I would be retiring today, but if I was ever going to announce my retirement it would not be in a downtown Los Angeles hotel with this fairly ugly carpet.

When I walk through that gate to the court, that’s my escape. I block out everything, good and bad.

I’d love to open a tennis school for children in my hometown of Sochi.

I’m not the next Kournikova-I want to win matches!

It’s easy to impress me. I don’t need a fancy party to be happy. Just good friends, good food, and good laughs. I’m happy. I’m satisfied. I’m content.

The power of generalizing ideas, of drawing comprehensive conclusions from individual observations, is the only acquirement, for an immortal being, that really deserves the name of knowledge.

Once you realize you deserve a bright future, letting go of your dark past is the best choice you will ever make.

You deserve some respect. You are important to other people, as much as to yourself. You have some vital role to play in the unfolding destiny of the world.

I will make my mental health a priority because I deserve to know peace.

It does not follow, that because a particular work of art succeeds in charming us, its creator also deserves our admiration.

Anyone who believes what a cat tells him deserves all he gets.

I wasn’t lucky, I deserved it.

You deserve to be the person you were meant to be.