“Since I’m the youngest in the family, I sulk when my parents deny me something, although I come around when they explain why it was denied.”

I was 18 when I was presented with the Arjuna Award. To say it feels really good would be an understatement. But I don’t know how else to convey the feeling. I am grateful for having received this prestigious award at such a young age.

Sometimes you don’t play up to the mark, and you win even then.

Since the Rio Olympics, the expectations are always high, and the responsibilities are also high. I am used to it now. You have to keep going and keep working hard.

While there are many good courts in the country, we need to have good coaches for more players to come up. Not everyone can go to Gopichand Academy, and everyone cannot afford international tournaments.

I think judging a shuttle is different everywhere, so there is a drift, but you have to be used to it. We can’t complain, as I think it is same for all.

You win some and lose some. It’s all part of the game. You have to take it in a very positive way.

I think you can never be a complete player.

I think each player has a different style of play, and every match is different.

Definitely, the aim is to become No.1.

You have to keep on learning all the time unless and until you become perfect in all the strokes.

There are many defining moments in my journey.

Each tournament is different.

Every time I go on to the court, people expect me to get a medal. It is tough, and I can’t win always, but I still have to go out there and give my best.

I have a lot of hunger to win the big titles.

Many players are of the same standard; it all depends on how your strokes land on the other side of court.

I love to experiment with my looks and dresses on and off the court because I love to turn out very well. But, I must add here that just good-looking athletes can’t do anything for their sport.

One cannot explain words without making incursions into the sciences themselves, as is evident from dictionaries; and, conversely, one cannot present a science without at the same time defining its terms.

Science, for me, gives a partial explanation for life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience and experiment.

Not all things needs an explanation. Sometimes, all it needs is emotion.

My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind.

This power that I’m supposed to have over women was never noticed when I was a stage actor on Broadway. I don’t know when I got it. And by God, I can’t explain it.

Transformation is something I cannot explain – too much analysis might destroy it.

What can be explained is not poetry.

I just think the American people had expected that the president of the United States would be able to describe what he’s going to do in the next four years. But he can’t. He can’t even explain what he’s done in the last four years.