I was never part of the crowd.

I hate to lose more than I love to win.

People don't seem to understand that it's a damn war out there. Maybe my methods aren't socially acceptable to some, but it's what I have to do to survive. I don't go out there to love my enemy. I go out there to squash him.

Back in East St. Louis, tennis wasn't the real thing. If you weren't playing baseball, basketball, football, you were kind of on the outside.

People say I'm around because I have a lot of heart, but I know all the heart in the world couldn't have helped me if I wasn't physically fit.

That's something a lot of athletes miss - a lot of them walk away too soon. They don't get everything out of their system. They have a lot of what-ifs when they're sitting around later in life. I don't have that. I got all that out of my system. I pushed it to the brink, I loved it, and when I walked away, I'd had enough.

Tennis was never work for me, tennis was fun. And the tougher the battle and the longer the match, the more fun I had.