Billie Jean King famous quotes

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

#Success #Motivational Sports #Women

Champions keep playing until they get it right.
-- Billie Jean King

#Inspirational #Running #Perseverance

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.
-- Billie Jean King

#Success #Sports #Character

A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.
-- Billie Jean King

#Motivational #Success #Sports

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

#Sports #Perfect #Tennis

Champions adjust and pressure is a privilege.
-- Billie Jean King

#Champion #Pressure #Privilege

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

#Educational #Games #Care

You've got to win in sports - that's talent - but you've also got to learn how to remind everybody how you did win, and how often. That comes with experience.
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports #Learning #Winning

I wanted to use sports for social change.
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports #Use #Social

Ever since that day when I was 11 years old, and I wasn't allowed in a photo because I wasn't wearing a tennis skirt, I knew that I wanted to change the sport.
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports #Years #Tennis

Ladies, here's a hint. If you're up against a girl with big boobs, bring her to the net and make her hit backhand volleys. That's the hardest shot for the well-endowed.
-- Billie Jean King

#Girl #Tennis #Hints

No matter how tough, no matter what kind of outside pressure, no matter how many bad breaks along the way, I must keep my sights on the final goal, to win, win, win-and with more love and passion than the world has ever witnessed in any performance.
-- Billie Jean King

#Softball #Passion #Winning

Natural talent only determines the limits of your athletic potential. It's dedication and a willingness to discipline your life that makes you great.
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports #Dedication #Discipline

Pressure is a privilege - it only comes to those who earn it.
-- Billie Jean King

#Pressure #Privilege

I like entrepreneurial people; I like people who take risks.
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports #People #Risk

Pressure is a privilege ... it's what you do with it that matters.
-- Billie Jean King

#Badass #Women #Pressure

Sports are a microcosm of society.
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports #Microcosm

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

#Hymns #Differences #Important

No one changes the world who isn't obsessed.
-- Billie Jean King

#Inspiring #World #Changing The World

Bobby Riggs was one of my heroes. I admired him. That's one of the reasons I beat him - because I respected him.
-- Billie Jean King

#Hero #Reason #Beats

The most important words that have helped me in life, when things have gone right or when things have gone wrong are 'accept responsibility.'
-- Billie Jean King

#Responsibility #Important #Gone

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

#Opportunity #Choices

I hate being called a homosexual because I don't feel that way. It really upsets me ... Being gay can happen in any walk of life, in any world. If you have one gay experience, does that mean you're gay? If you have one heterosexual experience, does that mean you're straight? Life doesn't work quite so cut and dried.
-- Billie Jean King

#Hate #Mean #Cutting

I have often been asked whether I am a women or an athlete. The question is absurd. Men are not asked that. I am an athlete. I am a women.
-- Billie Jean King

#Leadership #Sports #Athlete

It's really impossible for athletes to grow up. On the one hand, you're still a child, still playing a game. But on the other hand, you're a superhuman hero that everyone dreams of being. No wonder we have such a hard time understanding who we are.
-- Billie Jean King

#Dream #Children #Growing Up

I try to perfect my strong points and make my weaknesses adequate.
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports #Strong #Perfect

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

#Sports #Men #Attention

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

#Mean #Therapists #Ready

I think younger players probably just think they are who they are-they don't think about coming out. Unless you're number one in the world, nobody cares, usually.
-- Billie Jean King

#Player #Thinking #Numbers

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.
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports #Successful #Young

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.
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports #Squash #Roots

Women's sports is still in its infancy. The beginning of women's sports in the United States started in 1972, with the passage of Title 9 for girls to finally get athletic scholarships.
-- Billie Jean King

#Girl #Sports #Athletic

Be bold. If you're going to make an error, make a doozy, and don't be afraid to hit the ball.
-- Billie Jean King

#Inspirational #Sports #Women

At 62 you want to keep moving; that's important.
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports #Moving #Important

I always liked co-ed events best so we have two men and two women on each team.
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports #Team #Men

When I was outed, it was like, That's done.
-- Billie Jean King

#Done

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.
-- Billie Jean King

#Inspirational #Gay #Bisexual

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

#Sports #Tennis #Made

I didn't really care if I had a coach that much, me personally, because I was brought up to think for myself.
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports #Thinking #Care

I always wanted to help make tennis a team sport.
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports #Team #Tennis

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

#Girl #Sports #Fall

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

#Sports #Husband #Father

Being Number One isn't everything to me, but for those few hours on the court it's way ahead of whatever's in second place.
-- Billie Jean King

#Success #Numbers #Way

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

#Girl #Sports #Team

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.
-- Billie Jean King

#Kings #Law #Want

Ask Nureyev to stop dancing, ask Sinatra to stop singing, then you can ask me to stop playing.
-- Billie Jean King

#Dancing #Singing #Ask Me

Winning is very tangible, it's very exciting, it's very pleasing, but it's momentary. If you can do things that last, that each generation can build upon, then that's when you're cooking.
-- Billie Jean King

#Winning #Cooking #Generations

Marriage isn't a 50-50 proposition very often. It's more like 100-0 one moment and 0-100 the next.
-- Billie Jean King

#Marriage #Next #Moments

The main thing is not a matter of wanting to win; the main thing is being scared to lose.
-- Billie Jean King

#Failure #Winning #Matter

Reputation is what others think about you. What's far more important is character, because that is what you think about yourself.
-- Billie Jean King

#Character #Thinking #Important

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.
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports #Boys #Opportunity

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

#Sports #Years #Long

I would love to be a player today. I had the right personality for it.
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports #Player #Personality

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

#Sports #Thinking #Way

When people tell you not to believe in your dreams, and they say “Why?”, say “Why not?
-- Billie Jean King

#Dream #Believe #People

I have a lot to say, and if I'm not No. 1, I can't say it.
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports

Each point I play is in the now moment. The last point means nothing, the next point means nothing.
-- Billie Jean King

#Mean #Play #Focus

Winning comes down to who can execute under pressure.
-- Billie Jean King

#Wrestling #Winning #Pressure

Tennis is a game of angles. You never have time to figure the angles. It's practiced. It's so practiced that it becomes an instinct. You just know where to put the ball. You just feel it. It has been computed into your brain so many times ­ it is there.
-- Billie Jean King

#Wrestling #Games #Tennis

You have got to want to be the best before you can even begin to reach for that goal, and you have got to be prepared to sacrifice a lot to get there.
-- Billie Jean King

#Running #Sacrifice #Goal

Champions take responsibility. When the ball is coming over the net, you can be sure I want the ball.
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports #Responsibility #Champion

For me, losing a tennis match isn't failure, it's research.
-- Billie Jean King

#Tennis #Competition #Research

Don't be afraid to hit the ball.
-- Billie Jean King

#Inspirational Life #Balls

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.
-- Billie Jean King

#Home #Men #Tennis

In 1973, women got 59 cents on the dollar; now we are getting 74 cents on the dollar. In the area of finance and business, we are at 68 cents on the dollar.
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports #Dollars #Finance

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.
-- Billie Jean King

#Girl #Sports #Athlete

Create your legacy, and pass the baton.
-- Billie Jean King

#Success #Legacy

It's your birthday today, so what would you say, if we turned that frown upside down
-- Billie Jean King

#Birthday #Today #Upside Down

Love, light & blessings be On this day I wish to say 'Health & Happiness to come your way' Happy Birthday
-- Billie Jean King

#Birthday #Blessing #Light

If your partner wants to be private, you have to respect that.
-- Billie Jean King

#Want #Partners

It is very hard to be a female leader. While it is assumed that any man, no matter how tough, has a soft side... and female leader is assumed to be one-dimensional.
-- Billie Jean King

#Men #Judging #Leader

Tennis taught me so many lessons in life. One of the things it taught me is that every ball that comes to me, I have to make a decision. I have to accept responsibility for the consequences every time I hit a ball.
-- Billie Jean King

#Life Lesson #Responsibility #Tennis

I was always in the tennis business-from 1968. I was in tournaments and also on World Team Tennis teams as well.
-- Billie Jean King

#Team #Tennis #World

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!
-- Billie Jean King

#Sports #Athlete #Men

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

#Tennis #Way #Sexuality

I knew after my first lesson what I wanted to do with my life.
-- Billie Jean King

#Life Lesson #Lessons #Firsts

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.
-- Billie Jean King

#Running #Strong #Boys

The trouble with being number one in the world - in anything- is that it takes a certain mentality to attain that position, and that is something of a driving, perfectionist attitude, so that once you do achieve number one, you don't relax and enjoy it.
-- Billie Jean King

#Attitude #Numbers #Relax

Victory is fleeting. Losing is forever.
-- Billie Jean King

#Forever #Victory #Fleeting

I feel that tennis is an art form that is capable of moving the players and the audience - at least a knowledgeable audience-in almost sensual ways. When I'm performing at my absolute best, I think that some of the euphoria I feel must be transmitted to the audience.
-- Billie Jean King

#Art #Moving #Player