A man will reveal his true self, or so it seems, on the tennis court.

The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.

We are the species that clamors to be lied to.

Loneliness is like starvation: you don't realize how hungry you are until you begin to eat.

The punishment – to the body, the brain, the spirit – a man must endure to become even a moderately good boxer is inconceivable to most of us whose idea of personal risk is largely ego-related or emotional.

I am not conscious of working especially hard, or of 'working' at all. Writing and teaching have always been, for me, so richly rewarding that I don't think of them as work in the usual sense of the word.

In love there are two things - bodies and words.