“I’ve been very competitive by nature from a young age, whether it was eating a bowl of pasta faster than somebody else, or always wanting to be the first one in line.”

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

I’m always that annoying person that pulls out the camera in the middle of dinner and starts taking candids.

I think when you have surgery on any part of your body, it’s never going to be the same.

Whether you win a match or lose a match, in terms of your emotions, it’s important to be pretty levelheaded.

As an individual, I take every match seriously, no matter who I’m going to play.

It’s always tough when you lose – you’ve worked so hard for that moment and it hasn’t gone the way you wanted. But you have to realise there’s always a bright side, you have to pick yourself up and get ready for the next game.

I’d probably start charging for medical timeouts. I think we’d all see who really uses them and who doesn’t.

When I come into a tournament, I’m expecting to win. That’s my philosophy. I can’t go to a tournament thinking, ‘I’m going to get my ass kicked today, so I might as well leave.’

If everything was going smoothly you would never build character.

I love to collect modern art.

I can’t say I don’t like acting, but I can’t imagine a career when I have to spend 70 percent of my time in a trailer eating Snickers bars.

Within a few years the name ‘Maria Sharapova’ will be a brand as universally recognized as Calvin Klein, BMW and Rolex.

If you’re able to help some people and make them smile and make them realize that life is good, then that’s worth so much more than buying a pair of shoes.

My family and I built my whole career from scratch.

I don’t follow other players or the tournaments they play. I have my own schedule and do my own thing. I never really think, ‘Oh, I want to be or play like so-and-so.’ I just like being myself.

No matter what you study, the thing that you know best is what you grew up with.

Count Basie practically adopted me at 13. We became closer and closer and I ended up conducting for him and Sinatra.

To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind.

I don’t have any issues with my age.

I don’t want to be made to look like I’m 25. I’m 39. I don’t have any issues with my age.

I’ve been in the public eye for about 15 or 16 years and I’m very aware that fame is not a given. I have to maintain it. It’s not just something that will always be there.

Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered.

We all have souls of different ages.

You are something new in this world. Never before, since the beginning of time, has there ever been anybody exactly like you; and never again throughout all the ages to come will there ever be anybody exactly like you again.