Quotes By Billie Jean King

If your partner wants to be private, you have to respect that.

Champions keep playing until they get it right.

They're not put on earth to be martyrs; they have to want to come out. It depends on your culture, where you work, where you live. Each person's circumstances are unique.

I would love to be a player today. I had the right personality for it.

That is where the power, opportunity, and choice come from-when you have money. Money equals opportunity. There is no question.

It's fun to meet people from throughout the world who you don't have to explain yourself to.

The main thing is to care. Care very hard, even if it is only a game you are playing.

A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.

Everyone has people in their lives that are gay, lesbian or transgender or bisexual. They may not want to admit it, but I guarantee they know somebody.

I think self-awareness is probably the most important thing towards being a champion.

Sports teaches you character, it teaches you to play by the rules, it teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose-it teaches you about life.

Men can have a huge turnover of sponsorship and still survive a lot better than the women. But the women's ratings are better, at least at home in the United States than in the men's tennis.

At 62 you want to keep moving; that's important.

In 1973, a woman could not get a credit card without her husband or father or a male signing off on it.

Any therapist will tell you that when you're ready, you will come out. To be outed means you weren't ready.

I used to be told if I talked about my sexuality in any way that we wouldn't have a tennis tour.

In the seventies we had to make it acceptable for people to accept girls and women as athletes. We had to make it okay for them to be active. Those were much scarier times for females in sports.

It's just really important that we start celebrating our differences. Let's start tolerating first, but then we need to celebrate our differences.

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.

I love to promote our sport. I love grass-roots tennis. I love coaching. I love all parts of the sport. I love the business side.

I like entrepreneurial people; I like people who take risks.

When I was outed, it was like, That's done.

I knew after my first lesson what I wanted to do with my life.

When we reach the point where the women athletes are getting their pick of dates just as easily as the men athletes, then we've really and truly arrived. Parity at last!

Tennis is a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquillity.

Women get the attention when we get into the men's arena, and that's sad.

Men still get a lot more opportunity. It is still a big part of the old boy network. They have more companies they can get money from.

No one changes the world who isn't obsessed.

Martina and I went through a very bad five years. Everything's very good between us now, but it was a long haul.

I think it's impossible to judge whether another person should come out. You just hope they will on their own time and their own terms.