Tennis And Life Quotes & Sayings

I believe the religion of Christ covers the whole man. Why shouldn't a man play baseball or lawn-tennis? ... Don't imagine that you have got to go into a cave to be consecrated, and stay there all your life. Whatever you take up, take it up with all your heart. — Dwight L. Moody

I'm trying to enjoy my lie as much as I can and I know that tennis hopefully is going to be my life the next 10, 15 years. — Novak Djokovic

I was a gypsy, living a carefree life of ponies and tennis. — Lilly Pulitzer

I have been taking stock of my 50 years since I left Wichita in 1922 at the age of 15 to become a dancer with Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. How I have existed fills me with horror. For I have failed in everything
spelling, arithmetic, riding, tennis, golf; dancing, singing, acting; wife, mistress, whore, friend. Even cooking.
And I do not excuse myself with the usual escape of 'not trying.' I tried with all my heart. — Louise Brooks

I prayed for my heart to soften, to forgive her, and love her for what she did give me
life, great values, a lot of tennis lessons, and the best she could do. Unfortunately, the best she could do was terrible, thee the Minister of Silly Walks trying to raise an extremely sensitive young girl, and my heart remained hardened toward her. [p. 46] — Anne Lamott

It's difficult for people to come to the understanding that only a small minority of the people ever really get the word about life, about living abundantly and successfully. Success in the important departments of life seldom comes naturally, no more naturally than success at anything-a musical instrument, sports, fly-fishing, tennis, golf, business, marriage, parenthood, landscape gardening. But somehow people wait passively for success to come to them, living as other people are living in the unspoken, tacit assumption that other people know how to live successfully. — Earl Nightingale

You did the best you could," and she seemed to believe I had.
I said, "I've just been going through the motions," using the expression my father had after he'd watched my first tennis lesson.
"Sweetie," she said, "that's what a lot of life is. — Melissa Bank

Until recently, I never realized to what degree the middle class is a moral, rather than an economic, entity, based less on status than on possessive, life-sustaining love. The moral middle class plays life by percentages, because that is the safest bet, and percentage play - in life as in tennis - is by definition conservative. — Andrew Todhunter

We are not simply intellectual creatures. We wish to make love, to enjoy a gourmet dinner, to jog in the park, to cheer lustily at a ball game, to engage in spirited conversation with our friends, to play bridge or tennis, travel to exotic places, struggle with others to build a better world, and to enjoy the arts. The arts are so vital because they help to make life worth living. Music, poetry, literature, paintings, dance, and the theater are among our richest joys ... The fine arts contribute immeasurably to the good life and that is why we cherish them. — Paul Kurtz

I do have ambition - I can dress up for a premiere, get in a limousine, but it's not my life. My life is wearing jeans and tennis shoes and travelling on the metro. I have to do that because otherwise my acting is going to be false. — Caterina Murino

Never give up. Take what life throws at you and throw it right back. If life keeps throwing then you have a tennis match going. Learn to like tennis. — Glenn Ford

I never expected i, in the first place, when I started playing tennis, that I would ever carry the flag into the Olympic Stadium for an Olympic Games ... So for me that was a surprise and a huge honor in my life to be able to represent Switzerland. — Roger Federer

When I wrote my first book, 'The Tennis Party', my overriding concern was that I didn't write the autobiographical first novel. I was so, so determined not to write about a 24-year-old journalist. It was going to have male characters, and middle-aged people, so I could say, 'Look, I'm not just writing about my life, I'm a real author.' — Sophie Kinsella

I know some of my self-worth comes from tennis, and it's hard to think of doing something else where you know you'll never be thebest. Tennis players are rare creatures: where else in the world can you know that you're the best? The definitiveness of it is the beauty of it, but it's not all there is to life and I'm ready to explore the alternatives. — Martina Navratilova

Tennis is all about mental toughness, and you have to keep your head in the game. I make time to relax away from competition pressures, travel and intense training schedules to make sure I'm looking after myself. Taking time out with family and friends helps to maintain the work-life balance everyone needs. — Samantha Stosur

All you need are a pair of tennis shoes and motivation to change the course of your life. — Heidi Bond

The Olympics is not for tennis and tennis does not need the Olympics. It is not my goal in life to win a gold medal. — Marat Safin

There were times when I asked myself whether I was being principled or simply a coward ... I was wrapped in the cocoon of tennis early in life, mainly by blacks like my most powerful mentor, Dr. Robert Walter Johnson of Lynchburg, Virginia. They insisted that I be unfailingly polite on the court, unfalteringly calm and detached, so that whites could never accuse me of meanness. I learned well. I look at photographs of the skinny, frail, little black boy that I was in the early 1950s, and I see that I was my tennis racquet and my tennis racquet was me. It was my rod and my staff. — Arthur Ashe

I do think your personal life has an impact on your tennis. If your private life is up and down, and you're thinking about what is going on back home, then you aren't solely focused on your job, but when things are good back home, it's so much easier when you're on court. It's not necessarily marriage; it's more having a stable relationship. — Andy Murray

Good tennis players are those who beat other tennis players, and a good shot during play is one the opponent can't return. But that's not a truth about life or excellence -- it's a truth about tennis. We've created an artificial structure in which one person can't succeed without doing so at someone else's expense, and then we accuse anyone who prefers other kinds of activities of being naive because "there can be only one best -- you're it or you're not," as the teacher who delivered that much-admired you're-not-special commencement speech declared. You see the sleight of hand here? The question isn't whether everyone playing a competitive game can win or whether every student can be above average. Of course they can't. The question that we're discouraged from asking is why our games are competitive -- or our students are compulsively ranked against one another -- in the first place. — Alfie Kohn

Thou asks, puttar, the purpose of life. This is a very large question indeed from one so young. It is a very quick question to answer, however, and this you will understand one day, or even sooner. Love and be loved, and do a little bit of good. That is the purpose of life, even though tennis is not cricket. — Ian B.G. Burns

Nowadays we live in a world where poor teenagers are willing to maim and murder for a pair of tennis shoes or a designer coat; this is not a consequence of poverty. In dire situations of poverty at earlier times in our nation's history, it would have been unthinkable to the poor to murder someone for a luxury item. While it was common for individuals to steal or attack in the interests of acquiring resources - money, food or something as simple as a winter coat to ward off the cold - there was no value system in place that made a life less important than the material desire for an inessential object. — Bell Hooks

The diplomatic kids had a hectic sort of life, being constantly thrown from one end of the world to the other and always playing tennis, no matter who was being machine-gunned in the streets, you were always extraterritorial, history was not permitted to touch you, it was only buzzing around your tennis court in a bloody sort of way. You were so well protected that you went to pieces. Diplomatic immunity could do very strange things to you, it was like weightlessness. You had to remind yourself constantly that you actually existed, and you were not supposed to identify yourself too much with the suffering of whatever country you were posted to. But then, who needs reality anyway? — Romain Gary

When you do something best in life, you don't really want to give that up - and for me it's tennis. — Roger Federer

I believe that one version of the good in life can be defined by the moments I sometimes had playing tennis as a sixteen-year-old. You'd be out on the court and for an hour, two hours, sometimes an entire roasting hot day, and every single thing you hit would go in. Hit that ball as hard as you wanted, wherever you wanted, and it went in. — Atul Gawande

There is no life for girls in team sports past Little League. I got into tennis when I realized this, and because I thought golf would be too slow for me, and I was too scared to swim. — Billie Jean King

It is just a crazy life as a sportsman. My daughter, Sam, wants to go into tennis, and I tell her, 'No, you don't want to go into professional sport.' — Ernie Els

I just feel like it would be so against my personality to have this struggle in tennis and just give up. I know it's not me, not who I am, and that would probably affect other parts of my life. — Michael Chang

I am always working on the go. I have never had an office that I work out of and work has become intertwined with my personal life. Fortunately I am able to work from my home and can answer my e-mails in the morning, play tennis or kitesurf in the afternoon to keep fit and have meetings or phone calls in between. — Richard Branson

I enjoy hanging out with friends, going on hikes and playing tennis. I also enjoy Bible study and making dinners. I have a pretty mellow life away from the water. — Bethany Hamilton

If you are worshipping false gods-such as football, baseball, gold, tennis, or money or technology or automobiles or houses or gold or silver-and you can tell what a man worships by what he does on Sunday-repent and start worshipping the true and living God, the maker of heaven and earth and all things that in them are. — Hartman Rector Jr.

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. — Andre Agassi

I never did drama at school. I did it for one term, when it was compulsory, and I hated it. Tennis was the main thing in my life, and I was not open to anything else. When I removed tennis from the equation, I didn't know who I was. — Luke Mitchell

My mother is a fighter. After she battled polio and learned to walk again, the doctors told her she would be a cripple her entire life. Instead of accepting defeat, she refused this fate and went on to become the West African Women's Singles tennis champion in college. — Uzo Aduba

The public examination of homosexuality in our contemporary life is still so coated with distasteful moral connotations that even a reviewer is bound to wonder uneasily why he was selected to evaluate a book on the subject, and to assert defensively at the outset that he is happily married, the father of four children and the one-time adornment of his college boxing, track and tennis teams. — Sydney J. Harris

I have always valued the care for my body, and my mind and had holistic approach to life. I always thought this is utmost importance for my tennis. — Novak Djokovic

I've been playing against older and stronger competition my whole life. It has made me a better tennis player and able to play against this kind of level despite their strength and experience. — Maria Sharapova

No, like I said, my dad was never really part of the tennis. His involvement around what I did with the tennis and with my mom and my grandparents was really not a part of my life. — Jimmy Connors

My mom played tennis for, like, six hours a day and went to college on a tennis scholarship, because that was the way she could go to school. So they instilled in me the idea that you have to work hard for the things you want in life and never complain. — Dakota Fanning

The doctors told me I'd be fine if I play only golf and tennis doubles for the rest of my life. But I dive. I dogsled. I trek. I guess I'll have surgery. — Lauren Hutton

The fact that nobody played tennis in my family and you'd say by chance they make three tennis courts in front of the restaurant that my family owned when I was 4, I think that's a destiny. That's kind of life circumstances that kind of come together for you to become who you want to become. — Novak Djokovic

I am not one of those people who lives for work. I enjoy sculpting and photography and tennis and swimming. I simply do not have enough time. My life is not in control. — Pattie Maes

Tennis players we're always playing in center courts that feel like arenas. And when we get on the court and the crowd cheers your name or salutes you - it's like you're a gladiator in the arena. And everyone is cheering - and you're fighting, you're screaming, during your strokes - it feels like you're an animal, fighting for your life. — Novak Djokovic

I was never happy that my injuries cut my career short and ultimately forced my decision to step away from tennis. I have enjoyed my time away from the court, a period that has allowed me to experience a different side of life. However, I miss the game and the challenge of competing at the highest level of tennis, and I want to gauge whether I can stay healthy and compete against today's top players. — Martina Hingis

My message is to get human beings to love God, love their neighbor and for the life of me I just don't see the downside of human beings not being so mean to one another and actually care for one another and not steal from one another and not murder each other for their tennis shoes. That's the message I have. — Phil Robertson

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. — Chris Evert

You know how when you step on court your coach is like "go go go!"? And all throughout you just keep telling yourself to hit harder and harder and keep at it? You know how much you treasure those five-minute timeouts? You know how good you feel at the end of a session? You know how you're glad you're tired? No pills, no shots, just plain energy. I want to work like that. Whether I have to write ten thousand words or send five hundred emails, brainstorm for hours at a time, I want to have that energy. To keep fighting. To know it's all worth it.
Oh, yeah. That's my perfect day. — Thisuri Wanniarachchi

One may do many things in a long life. I also played a great deal of tennis and brought up three children. There's time for all sorts of adventures. — Audrey Niffenegger

I got to a stage where tennis was the only thing in my life, and I didn't like that. — Luke Mitchell

I like putting money back into what made my life, and tennis has been great to me. — Billie Jean King

He was working that charm right now on the trainer who kneeled before him and touched his thigh as though it were the thigh of David, Michelangelo's glorious statue come to life right here on court. — A.G. Starling

Tennis is a funny game, and it takes a life-time of keeping one's eyes open on the circuit to have any chance of understanding the strange phenomena that exist in our exciting sport! — Sania Mirza

I didn't cry when they buried my father - I wouldn't let myself. I didn't cry when they buried my sister. On Thursday night, with my family asleep upstairs, my eyes filled as Agassi and Marcos Baghdatis played out the fifth set of their moving second-round match. — Greg Garber

Matthew hereby declares that Katherine Galloway is retroactively responsible for all embarrassing and painful incidents that have occurred in his life to date. Including, but not limited to, that time he broke his own nose with a tennis racket in eighth grade. KATHERINE'S FAULT. — Lauren James

Being home alone at night makes me a bit nervous. If I'm at home alone, I have to sleep on the sofa - I can't face going to bed. I'm there with the TV on and all the lights on. I'm not very brave about anything in life. In tennis, yes. In everything else, not very. — Rafael Nadal

Another factor is the education and culture in which you grow up. I didn't grow up in the culture of victory, where you are expected to be or have to be, the best. It was not at all like that in my family. Tennis was really a hobby. If it led to something, great. If not, there were other things in life. I think that was something I was missing at some points in my career, because when I see Hingis or the Williamses, you see how they were educated for this: to win, to be the best, a bit the American mentality. Number one. Number one. Number one. I didn't have this. — Amelie Mauresmo

It is very important and my success very much depends on the harmony that I feel in my private life. It is essential for me to be happy in my private life. And if it continues, I am able to continue playing tennis. — Novak Djokovic

I get my drive and determination from just winning and playing tennis. I know if I don't work, I won't get rewarded. It was a life long dream to win a Grand Slam so when I was able to do that it felt so good and I wanted to do it again. It's not that hard to stay motivated. — Samantha Stosur

I really just try to enjoy the game and hope that I can inspire young kids. I started playing tennis because of Monica Seles, and I try to promote the sport in the best possible way. Sometimes it's hard because you get upset on court, but I think in life one learns through experiences in order to evolve as a person. — Ana Ivanovic

The finish line at the end of a career is no different from the finish line at the end of a
match. The objective is to get within reach of that finish line, because then it gives off a magnetic force. When you're close, you can feel that force pulling you, and you can use that force to get across. But just before you come within range, or just after, you feel another force, equally strong, pushing you away. It's inexplicable, mystical, these twin forces, these contradictory energies, but they both exist. I know, because I've spent much of my life seeking the one, fighting the other, and sometimes I've been stuck, suspended, bounced like a tennis ball between the two. — Andre Agassi

I've been an athlete all my life. I was a competitive figure skater, and then when I realized skating was not an adult sport I took up tennis and played that quite seriously from the time I was about 18. — Condoleezza Rice

And this has given rise to a whole new class of preening, narcissistic quacks like yourself who say in the service of rich and shameless polluters that the state of the atmosphere and the water and the topsoil on which all life depends is as debatable as how many angels can dance on the fuzz of a tennis ball. — Kurt Vonnegut

I wouldn't know what to do with daughters,' he says. 'Exchange them for sons?'
'But then I could wind up with something like you.'
'I'm not so bad,' he says. 'I'm smart.'
'You're about a hundred miles away from the town of Smart, my friend.'
'You're mistaken, counselor,' he says. 'I'm smart, I can take care of myself. I'm an awesome tennis player, a keen observer of life around me. I'm a good cook. I always have weed.'
'I'm sure your parents are proud.'
'It's possible.' He looks at his knees and I wonder if I've offended him. — Kaui Hart Hemmings

The Money River, where the wealth of the nation flows. We were born on the banks of it-and so were most of the mediocre people we grew up with, went to private schools with, sailed and played tennis with. We can slurp from that mighty river to our hearts' content. And we can even take slurping lessons, so we can slurp more efficiently. — Kurt Vonnegut

Do right-handed people live longer than lefties?

Then again, there are some things about lefties that can't be explained so easily. For whatever reason, whether it's the pressures of living in a world designed for righties, or all the talk of having shorter life spans, lefties have higher rates of depression, drug abuse, allergies, and schizophrenia. But lefties also have an advantage in sports like fencing, tennis and baseball, not to mention greater academic success and higher IQs. Five of America's last eleven presidents were lefties, even though they make up only 10 percent of the American population." (I believe Obama is a leftie as well, making that 6 of the last 12 presidents). — Anahad O'Connor

Tennis has given me this wonderful life and I'm very grateful for it. — Maria Sharapova

Speech, tennis, music, skiing, manners, love- you try them waking and perhaps balk at the jump, and then you're over. You've caught the rhythm of them once and for all, in your sleep at night. The city, of course, can wreck it. So much insomnia. So many rhythms collide. The salesgirl, the landlord, the guests, the bystanders, sixteen varieties of social circumstance in a day. Everyone has the power to call your whole life into question here. Too many people have access to your state of mind. Some people are indifferent to dislike, even relish it. Hardly anyone I know. — Renata Adler