Billie Jean King Quotes

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.

I would love to be a player today. I had the right personality for it.

I think younger players probably just think they are who they are-they don’t think about coming out. Unless you’re number one in the world, nobody cares, usually.