There is a syndrome in sports called 'paralysis by analysis.'
It doesn't have to glitter to be gold.
Having grown up in a segregated environment in the south I know what it's like to be stepped on, I know what it's like also to see some black hero do well in the face of adversity.
I keep sailing on in this middle passage. I am sailing into the wind and the dark. But I am doing my best to keep my boat steady and my sails full.
Drummed into me, above all, by my dad, by the whole family, was that without your good name, you would be nothing.
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.
Sometimes, a defeat can be more beautiful and satisfying than certain victories. The English have a point in insisting that it matters not who won or lost, but how you played the game.
You come to realize that life is short, and you have to step up. Don't feel sorry for me. Much is expected of those who are strong.
With what we give, we make a life.
I have always drawn strength from being close to home.
My potential is more than can be expressed within the bounds of my race or ethnic identity.
I have become convinced that we blacks spend too much time on the playing field and too little time in libraries.
Let me put it this way: I think Republicans tend to keep the ball in play, Democrats go for broke.
I have always tried to be true to myself, to pick those battles I felt were important. My ultimate responsibility is to myself. I could never be anything else.
It is not just the more talented player who wins. Some players may try a little harder.
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.
When bright young minds can't afford college, America pays the price.
We must believe in the power of education. We must respect just laws. We must love ourselves, our old and or young, our women as well as our men.
You've got to make a lot of sacrifices and spend a lot of time if you really want to achieve with this sport, or in any sport, or in anything truly worthwhile.
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."
I would like to flood South Africa with black personages of all sorts of persuasions: writers, educators, businessmen, you name it. If you are black and have any clout at all, I would like to see you go to South Africa and look for yourself and come back and try to use the tools that you have at your command to try and help the brothers down there.
I have tried to keep on with my striving because this is the only hope I have of ever achieving anything worthwhile and lasting.
Some folks call tennis a rich people's sport or a white person's game. I guess I started too early because I just thought it was something fun to do. Later, I discovered there was a lot of work to being good in tennis. You've got to make a lot of sacrifices and spend a lot of time if you really want to achieve with this sport, or in any sport, or in anything truly worthwhile.
...I spent many, many hours in...libraries. Libraries became courts of last resort, as it were.
I strongly believe the black culture spends too much time, energy and effort raising, praising, and teasing our black children about the dubious glories of professional sports.
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