Quotes By Billie Jean King

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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 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!

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

No one changes the world who isn't obsessed.

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

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.

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.

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

A girl didn't get an athletic scholarship until the fall of 1972 for the very first time.

I will tell you King's First Law of Recognition: You never get it when you want it, and then when it comes, you get too much.

The old boy network is still very strong and very true. Just look at the stock exchange and how many men and women are there. It is still very much run by men.

I would just never out anybody. I think everyone has to find it in their own way and their own time.

When they take surveys of women in business, of the Fortune 500, the successful women, 80% of them, say they were in sports as a young woman.