“When we reach the point where the women athletes are getting their pick of dates just as easily as the men athletes, then we’ve really and truly arrived. Parity at last!”

I must keep my sights on the final goal, to win, win, win-and with more love and passion than the world has ever witnessed in any performance.

The main thing is to care. Care very hard, even if it is only a game you are playing.

I think one of the concerns, anytime you’re in the human business, like sports, it’s a very high – risk endeavor.

A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.

You just know where to put the ball. You just feel it. It has been computed into your brain so many times ­ it is there.

If you have one gay experience, does that mean you’re gay? If you have one heterosexual experience, does that mean you’re straight? Life doesn’t work quite so cut and dried.

When you oppress people either by gender, by race, by sexual orientation, when you do that and the doors become ajar, they will fly open and they will come and they have.

I always listen, I ask children, I even ask adults in tennis, “What are your children playing?” And most of the time it’s not tennis. It’s pathetic.

Ask Nureyev to stop dancing, ask Sinatra to stop singing, then you can ask me to stop playing.

There is no life for girls in team sports past Little League. I got into tennis when I realized this, and because I thought golf would be too slow for me, and I was too scared to swim.

Sports are a microcosm of society. It just shows how much more competition there is in the world.

Ever since that day when I was 11 years old, and I wasn’t allowed in a photo because I wasn’t wearing a tennis skirt, I knew that I wanted to change the sport.

Men still get a lot more opportunity. It is still a big part of the old boy network… They have more companies they can get money from.

When a child signs up for tennis, he or she is put on a team. I put them in a circle and then I make sure they name their own team.

We have, or have had women presidents or prime ministers in Liberia, Chile, Germany, Great Britain…and yet the US of A still hasn’t had a women president. It’s just beyond my thinking. Look at Congress.

You have got to want to be the best before you can even begin to reach for that goal, and you have got to be prepared to sacrifice a lot to get there.

It’s that point two people can get to they call love, when you really touch someone for the first time, but it’s gigantic, multiplied by the whole audience. I feel chills.

Being points beyond itself. Accustomed to think in terms of space, the expression “being points beyond itself” may be taken to denote a higher point in space.

Anyone with the physical qualifications can do that. So the director’s task is just that – to direct, to point the way. Then the actor takes over.

When I sing, I feel like when you’re first in love. It’s more than sex.

Wherever you are, that’s the entry point.

I think the highest and lowest points are the important ones. Anything else is just…in between.

My point is that there are a lot of forces, like the media and the general political rhetoric tells us we should have more. That we should do better than our parents and have a bigger house or a better car.

Getting drunk . . . you’re in complete control up to a point. It’s your choice, every time you take a sip.