Start Where You Are, Use What You

Every Time You Win, It Diminishes The Fear A Little Bit. You Never Really Cancel The Fear Of Losing; You Keep Challenging It.

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.

You've Got To Get To The Stage In Life Where Going For It Is More Important Than Winning Or Losing.

I Have Become Convinced That We Blacks Spend Too Much Time On The Playing Field And Too Little Time In Libraries.

You Learn About Equality In History And Civics, But You Find Out Life Is Not Really Like That.