Being famous before you've formed your personality, before you have that self-esteem, is dangerous.

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

If you can react the same way to winning and losing, that's a big accomplishment. That quality is important because it stays with you the rest of your life, and there's going to be a life after tennis that's a lot longer than your tennis life.

Of all my achievements in tennis, I'm probably as proud of my record on clay courts as any of my Wimbledon, U.S. Open or French singles titles.

If you're a champion, you have to have it in your heart. You can have the greatest coaches in the world, all the opportunities to play, and the greatest equipment, but if you don't have it inside, you're not going to make it. On the other hand, if you don't have any of those luxuries but you have heart and courage and the guts to go out there and grind it out, then you'll make it.

When I was in grade school and we had to write papers about what we wanted to be when we grew up, I wanted to be a social worker or a missionary or a teacher... Then I got involved with tennis, and everything was just me, me, me. I was totally selfish and thought about myself and nobody else, because if you let up for one minute, someone was going to come along and beat you. I really wouldn't let anyone or any slice of happiness enter... I didn't like the characteristics that it took to become a champion.

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.