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 KingRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Athletes face a unique struggle between their childhood innocence and the expectations of being role models.
This quote reflects the paradox that athletes experience as they navigate their careers; they maintain the playfulness of childhood while simultaneously embodying the ideals of superhuman excellence. This dual identity can lead to confusion about their self-perception and societal expectations, causing challenges in understanding their true selves amidst public adoration and pressure.
Themes
AthletesIdentityExpectationsChildhoodSuperhuman
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be shared at a sports seminar discussing the mental challenges athletes face.
More from Billie Jean King
All quotes βTennis 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 KingRead
A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.
Billie Jean KingRead
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 KingRead
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 KingRead
I like putting money back into what made my life, and tennis has been great to me.
Billie Jean KingRead
Similar quotes
It is so easy to presume that while your own world has ground to an absolute halt, so has everyone else's.
Jodi PicoultRead
I realized that very young - that a life where you don't live to your full potential, or you don't experiment, or you're afraid, or you hesitate, or there are things you know you should do but you just don't get around to them, is a life that I'd be miserable living, and the only way to feel that I'm on the right path is just to be true to myself, whatever that may be, and that tends to come with stepping out of something that's maybe safe or traditional.
Angelina JolieRead
Our lives are lived in intense and anxious struggle, in a swirl of speed and aggression, in competing, grasping, possessing and achieving, forever burdening ourselves with extraneous activities and preoccupations.
Sogyal RinpocheRead
O Lord God, we pray that we may be inspired to nobleness of life in the least things. May we dignify all our daily life. May we set such a sacredness upon every part of our life, that nothing shall be trivial, nothing unimportant, and nothing dull, in the daily round.
Henry Ward BeecherRead
I was born inside the movie of my life. The visuals were before me, the audio surrounded me, the plot unfolded inevitably but not necessarily. I don't remember how I got into the movie, but it continues to entertain me.
Roger EbertRead
And what does it matter when light enters the room where a child sleeps and the waking mother, opening her eyes, wishes more than anything to be unwakened by what she cannot name?
Mark StrandRead