When I was younger, I was a robot. Wind her up and she plays tennis.

To be a tennis champion, you have to be inflexible. You have to be stubborn. You have to be arrogant. You have to be selfish and self-absorbed. Kind of tunnel vision almost.

You've got to take the initiative and play your game. In a decisive set, confidence is the difference.

My first U.S. Open I think was just very special for me because that was sort of the beginning of what was a 'Cinderella' story for me.

When I play, I'm boiling inside. I just try not to show it because it's a lack of composure, and if you give in to your emotions after one loss, you're liable to have three or four in a row.

If you're a champion, you have to have it in your heart.

Find something that you're really interested in doing in your life. Pursue it, set goals, and commit yourself to excellence. Do the best you can.

You can't give up! If you give up, you're like everybody else.

Competitive toughness is an acquired skill and not an inherited gift.

Whatever your goal in life, be proud of every day that you are able to work in that direction.

The difference is almost all mental. The top players just hate to lose. I think that's the difference. A champion hates to lose even more than she loves to win.

We're never so vulnerable than when we trust someone - but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy.

It is the beginning of the end.

If your dream is a big dream and if you want your life to work on the high level that you say you do there's no way around doing the work it takes to get you there.

I have patience in all things - as far as the antechamber.

We are told to walk noiselessly through the world, that we may waken neither hatred, nor envy; but, alas! what can we do when they never sleep!

There's a point when you go with what you've got. Or you don't go.

I'm like an eight year old with the dressing-up box. I have the luxury of being able to change on a whim.

I have had the occasion to meet child actors from the '60s and '70s at various functions, and everyone's gone on to various different lives - they're real-estate agents or surfers.

Whenever I pick up a jacket and it's heavy, I think, 'Oh, I don't want to wear that.'

For your benefit, learn from our tragedy. It is not a written law that the next victims must be Jews. It can also be other people.