“When you travel so many weeks a year, it’s always nice to have a home-cooked meal.”

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.

When I’m down or maybe when it’s close in the match, I feel like I’m still in it. I don’t feel like I’m letting down. Mentally, I’m still really, really tough.

When you’re going through tough moments, you never know when you’re going to have good moments.

My main goal is to stay healthy because when you’re injured you realise how lucky you are to have your health.

If I can create something that allows a woman to feel better – that is the true reward.

When you come off the court and you feel like you were losing the whole match, and all of a sudden you pulled it out, you know, it’s those moments that you feel you’ve trained for and you work hard for. Just lucky to get through.

That’s why we have journalists, for stats.

I can’t please everyone. That’s not in my J.D., you know, not in my job description.

My mom was always really healthy and cautious about her diet, so I’m not a big sugar guy.

When a man makes his thoughts pure, he no longer desires impure food.

A man’s bread and butter is only insured when he works for it.

I believe in using words, not fists. I believe in my outrage knowing people are living in boxes on the street. I believe in honesty. I believe in a good time. I believe in good food. I believe in sex.

Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.

A man’s reading program should be as carefully planned as his daily diet, for that too is food, without which he cannot grow mentally.

And chicken is boring. Chefs see it as a menu item for people who don’t know what they want to eat.

Good food and good eating are about risk.