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.
BILLIE JEAN KINGYou’ve got to win in sports – that’s talent – but you’ve also got to learn how to remind everybody how you did win, and how often. That comes with experience.
More Billie Jean King Quotes
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In 1973, women got 59 cents on the dollar; now we are getting 74 cents on the dollar. In the area of finance and business, we are at 68 cents on the dollar.
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When people tell you not to believe in your dreams, and they say “Why?”, say “Why not?
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When they take surveys of women in business, of the Fortune 500, the successful women, 80% of them, say they were in sports as a young woman.
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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.
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At 62 you want to keep moving; that’s important.
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Marriage isn’t a 50-50 proposition very often. It’s more like 100-0 one moment and 0-100 the next.
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If your partner wants to be private, you have to respect that.
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Some people do have softer boundaries.
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I will tell you King’s First Law of Recognition: You never get it when you want it, and then when it comes, you get too much.
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The most important words that have helped me in life, when things have gone right or when things have gone wrong are ‘accept responsibility.’
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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.
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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.
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You’ve got to win in sports – that’s talent – but you’ve also got to learn how to remind everybody how you did win, and how often. That comes with experience.
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Every generation I think gets better usually [in tennis].
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Sports are a microcosm of society. It just shows how much more competition there is in the world.
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It’s about learning your craft. That’s a wonderful thing–especially with today’s consumerism and instant gratification.
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Pressure is a privilege … it’s what you do with it that matters.
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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.
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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.
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Sports are a microcosm of society.
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Champions take responsibility.
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Pressure is a privilege – it only comes to those who earn it.
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When I’m performing at my absolute best, I think that some of the euphoria I feel must be transmitted to the audience.
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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.
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Ask Nureyev to stop dancing, ask Sinatra to stop singing, then you can ask me to stop playing.
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I would just never out anybody. I think everyone has to find it in their own way and their own time.
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