When you deal with somebody in the heat of battle, you see the best or the worst of them. So when you get through all that there is a great deal of respect.

What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose.

My feelings are Yevgeny Kafelnikov should take his prize money when he is done here and go and buy some perspective.

I feel old when I see mousse in my opponent's hair.

The scoreboard said I lost today, but what the scoreboard doesn't say is what it is I have found. Over the last 21 years, I have found loyalty. You have pulled for me on the court and also in life. I found inspiration. You have willed me to succeed, sometimes even in my lowest moments, and I've found generosity. You have given me your shoulders to stand on to reach for my dreams, dreams I could never have reached without you.

He thinks it's his day, and when you think it's your day, it usually is.

It's no accident, I think, that tennis uses the language of life. Advantage, service, fault, break, love, the basic elements of tennis are those of everyday existence, because every match is a life in miniature. Even the structure of tennis, the way the pieces fit inside one another like Russian nesting dolls, mimics the structure of our days. Points become games become sets become tournaments, and it's all so tightly connected that any point can become the turning point. It reminds me of the way seconds become minutes become hours, and any hour can be our finest. Or darkest. It's our choice.