Start Where You Are, Use What You

I Don't Want To Be Remembered For My Tennis Accomplishments. That's No Contribution To Society. [tennis] Was Purely Selfish; That Was For Me.

Someone Once Told Me That God Figured That I Was A Pretty Good Juggler. I Could Keep A Lot Of Balls In The Air At One Time. So He Said, "let's See If He Can Juggle Another One."

The Ideal Attitude Is To Be Physically Loose And Mentally Tight.

You Really Are Never Playing An Opponent. You Are Playing Yourself.

There Were Times When I Asked Myself Whether I Was Being Principled Or Simply A Coward.... I Was Wrapped In The Cocoon Of Tennis Early In Life, Mainly By Blacks Like My Most Powerful Mentor, Dr. Robert Walter Johnson Of Lynchburg, Virginia. They Insisted That I Be Unfailingly Polite On The Court, Unfalteringly Calm And Detached, So That Whites Could Never Accuse Me Of Meanness. I Learned Well. I Look At Photographs Of The Skinny, Frail, Little Black Boy That I Was In The Early 1950s, And I See That I Was My Tennis Racquet And My Tennis Racquet Was Me. It Was My Rod And My Staff.