Tennis has to become everything to you if you're going to make it to the top. You have to live it.

I used to pretend that I was Tom attacking Jerry, who was drawn on the ball.

Madonna has total control over her life, and not many women have that.

Tennis has to become everything to you if you're going to make it to the top. You have to live it.

I have this terrible dark side to my personality, which playing tennis keeps at bay.

People think I must have been so talented at an early age, but I don't know - was it talent or hard work? Who knows?

You will never have great tennis champions from England because of the cold and dark, but most of all because people only care about the sport for two weeks a year, and then they're on to something else. There's just not a great love of the sport there.

I never really did Christmas before. Christmas Day? I mean - what's that? What's it all about? I was always flying on Christmas Day.

Tennis is so competitive. I guess that's the way it has to be.

It doesn't matter who is playing or how old they are. I just worry about what I can control. It doesn't give me more or less motivation.

You have to want to play it all day, every day to get to the top.

That's the key to success, isn't it? It has to be fun.

I did realise more than ever, after the stabbing, that tennis is a business - a tough business.

Did you know that Christmas Day is absolutely the best day to fly? It is. No crowded airports and crowded planes. I always flew to Australia. That's what Christmas was for me - a plane journey to the next tournament.

As a top player, you have to keep your emotions in check. You think you can control everything.

I am lucky to have advisers whom I trust.

I don't like salads: I like the strong food.

I lost my dad way too early and it was agonisingly awful. I missed him so much and I hated knowing that I could never again pick up the phone to tell him about my day.

I love to eat.

I think for me, food was a way for me to deal with emotional trouble.

I would like to thank all my tennis fans who were there from Day One when I was No. 1, through my stabbing, and my comeback.

I'm about the present.

I've always been a very private person.

If you look at tennis, the girls have become much more attractive; they wear makeup. In my generation, you were a tennis player. It wasn't like you had to look a certain way.

Since I retired, I very much enjoy watching Serena Williams play. While I was playing, she was one of the toughest players I ever faced. Her ground strokes are so solid, her serve is one of the most powerful in women's tennis, and mentally she is just so strong.

Tennis is pretty unforgiving if you are carrying weight. You are expected to wear short skirts, and you are compared to all these 16 and 17-year-olds.

What I put in the stock market, I don't have to touch in my lifetime. I want to live off my bonds. I want to be that safe.

If Davis Cup was a little bit less or once every two years, I would be more inclined to play. But the way it is now, it is too much tennis for me.

I would like to see it go back to the wood racquets. To see the touch put back in tennis.

It's true I always try to be as seductive as possible but I wouldn't be here if I couldn't play tennis.

Golfers are forever working on mechanics. My tennis swing hasn't changed in 10 years.

When I was 12, every little girl in Russia was trying to wear her hair like mine and playing tennis.

What these guys are doing is great for Argentinean tennis. This is motivating other people.

I love to promote our sport. I love grass-roots tennis. I love coaching. I love all parts of the sport. I love the business side.

In tennis, you can make a couple of mistakes and still win. Not in golf. I played three rounds in that Tahoe event, and I was drained. Mentally, not physically.

We are merely the stars tennis-balls, struck and bandied which way please them.

I used to be told if I talked about my sexuality in any way that we wouldn't have a tennis tour.

What I want out of tennis is not necessarily just winning.

I've been playing tennis, and just whatever sport is in front of me I will do.

Tennis and golf are best played, not watched.

Yeah, I think there are many other important things in life, not just tennis.

My father actually moved out from Chicago just so he could play tennis 365 days a year, so it was - it was a place we played every day. We played before school. We played after school. We woke up. We played tennis. We brushed our teeth in that order.

The tennis wasn't really very much on my mind, so it wasn't like I was thinking about it all the time.

No, like I said, my dad was never really part of the tennis. His involvement around what I did with the tennis and with my mom and my grandparents was really not a part of my life.

Safin, in his way, is very talented. It is a joy to watch them play; it is tennis of a very high quality.

To meet my goals, I couldn't let up when I was playing tennis.

Both of us played basketball, and I played tennis and my knees are done. Now if you ask us head-to-head who wins at golf, I'm asking for a couple of strokes.

It was very hard for me to practice and enjoy my tennis, and I didn't know the why, so I worked with psychologists to try and see what was happening. They pushed me really hard.

I used to travel in tennis shoes; I am just not allowed to anymore. I'm an old hippie from San Francisco.