Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved; the pig is committed.
There is no cheap way to achieve the ability to turn pro in tennis; it unfortunately is more expensive than team sports.
I've been talking to Martina [Hingis] about playing for a couple of years. Maybe I can convince her to play some doubles.
What matters isn't how well you play when you're playing well. What matters is how well you play when you're playing badly.
I shouldn't say I'm looking forward to leading a normal life, because I don't know what normal is. This has been normal for me.
That's the media now. They get lazy. Rumors become fact. Some blogger says something, next thing you know, it's in 'USA Today.'
Tennis is the purest form of democracy. There was a symbiotic, chicken-and-egg relationship for me between democracy and tennis.
Players are saying, 'I don't have to have a coach who has only played a little bit. Instead, I can have somebody who won something'.
On Chris Evert: Before I even met her, she stood for everything I admired in this country: poise, ability, sportsmanship, money, style.
In Czechoslovakia there is no such thing as freedom of the press. In the United States there is no such thing as freedom from the press.
There was a joke in Czechoslovakia: The Communist Party dance, it's one step forward, two steps backward, and everyone is still clapping.
I haven't bought any leather articles for a very long time. My ideal is to be able to avoid all animal products, in food as well as clothing.
Concentration is born on the practice court... you must mentally treat your practice sessions as matches, concentrating on every ball you hit.
Sachin was so focused. He never looked like getting out. He was batting with single-minded devotion. It was truly remarkable. It was a lesson.
You don't have to be pretty for people to come and see you play. At the same time, if you're a good athlete, it doesn't mean you're not a woman.
Variety is what I would recommend: As variety is the spice of life in food, so it is in exercise. Change it up. But most of all, don't overdo it.
The Williams girls compete extremely hard on court because they hate losing - it's just that they haven't played an awful lot of tennis over the years.
Sport doesn't know barriers, really. You are judged on your performance... how far you can jump, how fast you can run, how well you can hit a tennis ball.
I'm not a one-sex person, and yet I hate the term bisexual. It sounds creepy to me, and I don't think I'm creepy. There are times when I feel downright romantic.
The more people come out, the less it will be an issue. Of we are ashamed of ourselves, how the hell can we expect the rest of the world not to be ashamed of us?
Once you start believing in yourself, anything is possible. Once you start believing in yourself, your dreams take shape. The more you believe, the more you achieve.
After I retired, I was in Aspen, and after two months of being at home, I started to go nuts. I needed to go somewhere because that was the longest I never travelled.
If it feels right in your gut, this is who you are, this is what you do, this is what you feel, then don't hide that. You just stick to it and the world will catch up.
Life is about challenges and how we face up to them and the attitude we take into every day life so hopefully we'll be able to motivate people to do more with their life.
If I feel strongly, I say it. I know I can do more good by being vocal than by staying quiet. I'd have a whole lot more money if I lied, but I wouldn't enjoy spending it.
When I worked with Billie Jean King and Craig Kardon, and we would be working on something, Billie would show up and say, 'What about this?' Neither one of us had seen it.
The only people that really have a chance against Serena [Williams] are people that are strong, that can handle her power that move well, and that's a difficult combination.
The longer I stay in the States, the more I understand how important it is to smile and seem like a nice guy. Like Ronald Reagan. Your image seems to count more than what you do.
The tennis ball doesn't know how old I am. The ball doesn't know if I'm a man or a woman or if I come from a communist country or not. Sport has always broken down these barriers.
Just by being out you're doing your part. It's like recycling. You're doing your part for the environment if you recycle; you're doing your part for the gay movement if you're out.
The mentality, that's something you should be able to control. Whether you are healthy or not, how fast you can run - they aren't things you can work on, but the mentality should be.
People who are rich want to be richer, but what's the difference? The toys get different, that's all. The rich guys buy a football team, the poor guys buy a football. It's all relative.
I just wanted to play tennis. It wasn't a job. It was an ambition. I knew I could make money at it. I was 18 - old enough to think I could do it, young enough not to consider the consequences.
Julia, I promise to love you, to cherish you, in sickness and in health. No matter what, I will be there for you and our family. I promise not to make the social media another member of our family.
I'll do some running with the dogs, ride a bike; if I go to gym it's usually for cardio. I don't do weights as much; every once in while, I throw in some pushups and do leg exercises to strengthen my legs.
Just put one foot in front of the other and don't worry about the length of the path. Once you get on that path, and the longer you stay on it, there eventually will come a time when you will not turn back.
My mom told me to cover up my arms ever since I was little because I was muscular. She wanted me to be feminine, which did not come easy to me. My body was what it was, and I worked it to be a better tennis player.
My worst memory is of my first dance lesson as a 14-year old in Prague. My mother put me in this silver and pink lame dress. My hair was all curled, and it was the first time I wore a garter belt. I felt so out of place!
If a man can coach a female, why can't a female coach a male? When I was looking for a coach, the gender of the coach never occurred to me. It was about who I thought was good and who I could get along with and listen to.
I really couldn't come out until after I got my citizenship, because it was a disclaim - back then, it could have been a disqualifier. I could have been denied my U.S. citizenship because I was gay. So I didn't - I stayed quiet.
I do get pissed off when I'm at some gay event, and there's a 25-year-old, and he has no idea who I am. And I say, 'You need to know more about your gay history, boy.' I think the younger generation takes it a little bit for granted.
I came to live in a country I love; some people label me a defector. I have loved men and women in my life; I've been labeled the bisexual defector. Want to know another secret? I'm even ambidextrous. I don't like labels. Just call me Martina.
Ted Cruz, if he's elected president, the first thing he will do is return Don't Ask Don't Tell and roll back same-sex marriage laws. Which is law - hello - you can't really take it away. It's really terrifying the direction we're going in now.
I tell you, if I was in the same position I was in 1975, trying to leave a communist country and trying to live a free life, America is not the country that I would think about going to considering how many rights the GOP is trying to take away.
You can have a coach for five or six years, and eventually, that coach has so little new to say. So get somebody else to give a different point of view. Somebody will see something I don't see and vice versa. You evolve with your game and your coaches.
I am just sorry my own mother had to live under that regime for most of her life. I was lucky. I got out and, 14 years later, Czechoslovakia became a free country. So I feel anger, even fury, at this bloody system that ruined so many people's lives for no reason whatsoever.
Russia is now very far from being a communist country, but when I walked around Moscow, I kept glimpsing these haunting images. There were statues of Lenin and some neon signs of the hammer and sickle. I remembered myself then as a little girl, living under that oppression.
I didn't realize until I was doing commentary what a gladiator-like competition tennis is - other than no one dies. The crowd is waiting for the players to come, and they walk through the tunnel, and they get on the court, and they get out their rackets, their weapons, and now they start.
We're criminalizing economic inability to stay out of the system. Women get penalized more than men for the same crime; blacks get penalized more than whites for the same crime. We need to bring out more into the light, because it's not fair... I applaud Colin Kaepernick for speaking out.
I'm 58 years old. I got married for the first time - it's about time, right? Growing up as a gay woman, you just don't ever think about that, and then I thought, about 10 years ago, 'You know, I think within 10 years gay marriage will be legal.' And here we are, 10 years later, making it legal.