Billie Jean King Quotes

33 Sourced Quotes

People say, "Do you know how much a million dollars is?" I don't have a clue. How many Big Macs will it buy me?

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

Billie Jean King
To me, tennis was my self-expression. As you get older, it's more and more important to try to stay active. It keeps your body strong; it helps you fend off disease. It keeps you vital.

Billie Jean King
In the complete overall history of tennis, I figure I'll be worth a sentence or two.... That's why my place in the all-time rankings means so very little to me, because I know I won't be anybody's number one, and it's that same old thing: if you're not number one, then what does it really matter?

Billie Jean King
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
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
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
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
It's really impossible for athletes to grow up. As long as you're playing, no one will let you. On the one hand, you're a child, still playing a game. And everybody around you acts like a kid, too. 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
The more I had won that year, the less it meant... and the more tired and sad I became. And the more I won, the more people wanted a part of me. 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
Recreation means to 'recreate' — it's spiritual. Think about the actual word. It's fascinating what a beautiful word it is when you look it up in the dictionary.

Billie Jean King
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
Until women are brought out of poverty, humanity can't move forward.

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

Billie Jean King
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
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
Female athletes are stereotyped by the general population—and usually as homosexuals.

Billie Jean King
Women need to see other women do well. It empowers them. We in athletics can help be a face of change and be a force. That's the responsibility of all of us.

Billie Jean King
Today, you just walk on the court, throw up the ball, roll over your arm, and make $100,000. I killed myself for $100,000.

Billie Jean King
I've been saying since the beginning of the 21st century that this is the century of women. People are finally understanding that until you bring women out of poverty, until you stop discounting them, and treating them like slaves — that's the word they use in the book — humanity can't move forward.

Billie Jean King
I want people to be champions in life. Look, some people are very highly skilled in athletics, but that doesn't mean they are good people. I don't have interest in them. I'm 66; I don't have time for that.

Billie Jean King
I don't have any trouble with not finishing; the main thing is to get started and have those first layers or foundations built. Then you keep passing the baton down to the next generation, and they build another bridge. I love promoting the younger ones and mentoring them. But I also get mentored by them, even if they don't realize it.

Billie Jean King
It's a perfect combination of a violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquility. My heart pounds, my eyes get damp, and my ears feel like they're wiggling, but it's also just totally peaceful. It's almost like having an orgasm—it's exactly like that.

Billie Jean King
The trouble with being number one in the world — at anything — is that it takes a certain mentality to attain that position in the first place, 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
Strength, spirit and vitality — what the heck is life all about if you don't have those things to give you the energy to live it?

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

Billie Jean King
I've never cared that much for cementing my place in history. Sports is so transitory, so ephemeral. It just seems like so much nonsense comparing me to Helen Wills Moody or Suzanne Lenglen or anybody else from some other time. One lesson you learn from sports is that life goes on without you.

Billie Jean King
The most difficult part of everything is the finish! Whether it's a business deal, a book, a project, in sports — whatever. You can get, like, 98-99 percent there, like in a match, but it is so difficult to really finish and to win. It's like, I just got a load of clothes done, but I still have to fold them. And that will be the challenge.

Billie Jean King
It's about learning your craft. That's a wonderful thing — especially with today's consumerism and instant gratification. You can't buy that. It's about making decisions, corrections, choices. I don't think it's so much about becoming a tennis player. It's about becoming a person.

Billie Jean King
Each point I play is the now moment: the last point means nothing; the next point means nothing.

Billie Jean King