“Early in my career, I had no consistency. Now I’m the most consistent player on the tour. It feels pretty good.”

You’ve never seen me dance, have you?

I’ve done so many interviews over the years in so many different languages. Radios. Papers. Magazines. There’s always another interview to do. It’s quite something, I have to say.

When you do something best in life, you don’t really want to give that up – and for me it’s tennis.

Sometimes you have to accept that a guy played better on the day than you.

I can’t stay No. 1 for fifty years, you know. We’ll see what happens.

There is no way around the hard work. Embrace it.

I don’t mind fans coming up in a friendly, respectful way. That’s all part of the fun of being a top tennis player. But if people take pictures without permission, particularly if my children are in the shot, I feel uncomfortable.

Seriously. I’m not playing to prove anything to journalists. I’m playing for myself, for my fans,to make people happy.

I fear no one, but respect everyone.

Hopefully I can just have another terrible year with only the one Grand Slam and that will be just fine.

In the locker room I was getting impatient to get on the court, I had to warm up several times.

I think it’s very hard for coaches to work with me. They’ll no doubt have a good CV afterwards, but at the same time they’re under a lot of pressure.

One of my big, big strengths I think early on in my career was that I could learn very quickly. You wouldn’t have to tell me the things 10 times or 50 times until I would understand them. You would only have to tell me two or three times.

I always believe if you’re stuck in a hole and maybe things aren’t going well you will come out stronger. Everything in life is this way.

Once you find that peace, that place of peace and quiet, harmony and confidence, that’s when you start playing your best.

Once you reach a good level in tennis it fills you with a lot of motivation. I hope I can do it for a long time.

I had once thought I would become a doctor but gave up on the thought soon enough. I took up the racquet instead. Later, when I saw my sister studying so much to become a doctor, I was like, ‘Thank God I am a shuttler!’

I was clear about the fact that my first film should be ‘big,’ since it’s the start of your whole career graph.

Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman’s natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.

There are more old drunks than there are old doctors.

If you do what you love, you will never have to work a day in your life.

I was studying to be an architect, I wasn’t plotting to join the movies. Films were just another career option. I took acting up with the same schoolgirl enthusiasm I had for examinations. Acting is a job and I take it very seriously.

I’m very proud of my career. A lot of people get their career from the judges of ‘Drag Race’ saying they’re great. I had to go and build that reputation from the ground up.

When you are bigger than your purpose you have a career. When your purpose is bigger than you, you have a calling.