“I knew after my first lesson what I wanted to do with my life.”

I always liked co-ed events best so we have two men and two women on each team.

Pressure is a privilege … it’s what you do with it that matters.

I think self-awareness is probably the most important thing towards being a champion.

Some people do have softer boundaries.

It’s really impossible for athletes to grow up. On the one hand, you’re still a child, still playing a game. But on the other hand, you’re a superhuman hero that everyone dreams of being. No wonder we have such a hard time understanding who we are.

At 62 you want to keep moving; that’s important.

You do have to get players every year. You have to deal with calendar. You have to deal with all kinds of things in our sport, like every sport does.

I have a lot to say, and if I’m not No. 1, I can’t say it.

Every generation I think gets better usually [in tennis].

Sports teaches you character, it teaches you to play by the rules, it teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose-it teaches you about life.

Ladies, here’s a hint. If you’re up against a girl with big boobs, bring her to the net and make her hit backhand volleys. That’s the hardest shot for the well-endowed.

It’s your birthday today, so what would you say, if we turned that frown upside down

I always respect right off the bat because we are human, but then over time you learn who the person truly is, just like they learn about you.

That’s why my place in the all-time rankings means so very little to me, because I know I won’t be anybody’s number one, and it’s that same old thing: if you’re not number one, then what does it really matter?

Men can have a huge turnover of sponsorship and still survive a lot better than the women. But the women’s ratings are better, at least at home in the United States than in the men’s tennis.

The most important words that have helped me in life, when things have gone right or when things have gone wrong are ‘accept responsibility.’

Seemed merely a temporary halt on my steady descent through layer after layer of depression, like an elevator stopping for a moment on the way down to the basement.

I was in fifth grade and my teacher saw an ad in the paper and took me to the audition after school and I got the part.

Hey, Hachi People always say that you only discover how precious something is after you lose it— but I think, you only really recognize it… when you see it a second time face to face. -Nana Osaki

The embassy was active here after the revolution. We didn’t have any problem with them. They started it.

After all, our families–our ancestors–are our identities. Biology is destiny.

It was a fleeting statement, one I didn’t think she’d hold on to; after all, she had birthed us alone, diapered and fed us, helped us with homework, kissed and hugged us, poured her love into us.

Do not seek after what you yearn for, seek the source of the yearning itself.

This year we watched the collapse of Mali, a consequence of the Libyan civil war. The south of Libya and Mali, and Niger too, are well on the way to becoming a no-man’s land. After 9/11,