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.
BILLIE JEAN KINGChampions adjust and pressure is a privilege.
More Billie Jean King Quotes
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Victory is fleeting. Losing is forever.
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Winning is very tangible, it’s very exciting, it’s very pleasing, but it’s momentary. If you can do things that last, that each generation can build upon, then that’s when you’re cooking.
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The trouble with being number one in the world – in anything- is that it takes a certain mentality to attain that position, and that is something of a driving, perfectionist attitude, so that once you do achieve number one, you don’t relax and enjoy it.
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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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In 1973, a woman could not get a credit card without her husband or father or a male signing off on it.
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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.
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I like to see what future generations are thinking about.
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Tennis is a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquillity.
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Pressure is a privilege … it’s what you do with it that matters.
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Reputation is what others think about you. What’s far more important is character, because that is what you think about yourself.
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At 62 you want to keep moving; that’s important.
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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!
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Each point I play is in the now moment. The last point means nothing, the next point means nothing.
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A girl didn’t get an athletic scholarship until the fall of 1972 for the very first time.
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Any therapist will tell you that when you’re ready, you will come out. To be outed means you weren’t ready.
BILLIE JEAN KING