A Quote by Clive James

John McEnroe has hair like badly turned broccoli. — © Clive James
John McEnroe has hair like badly turned broccoli.
John McEnroe...was arguably the best serve-and-volley man of all time, but then McEnroe was an exception to pretty much every predictive norm there was. At his peak (say 1980 to 1984), he was the greatest tennis player who ever lived-the most talented, the most beautiful, the most tormented: a genius. For me, watching McEnroe don a blue polyester blazer and do stiff lame truistic color commentary for TV is like watching Faulkner do a Gap ad.
As a kid I loved John McEnroe. They called me Mac because, while everyone else liked Borg, I was crazy about McEnroe. I tried wearing headbands and sweatbands, and whooping at people. It didn't quite work.
I wrote to Mr. McEnroe, Senior. I said: "Here is the sentence once written by the immortal Bobby Jones. I thought you might like to have it done in needlepoint and mounted in a suitable frame to hang over Little John's bed. It says, The rewards of golf - and of life, too, I expect - are worth very little if you don't play the game by the etiquette as well as by the rules." I never heard from Mr. McEnroe, Senior. I can only conclude that the letter went astray.
Guys like John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg and Stefan Edberg were also very good grass court players.
Professionalism in tennis ... only resulted in making billionaires out of rude children, producing an onslaught of moody defectors, and a lot of guys with hair that looks as if bats slept in it... Meanwhile, my head swims with the thought that I have watched tennis progress from Don Budge and Alice Marble to Farrah Fawcett becoming John McEnroe's mother-in-law.
When you ask people about guys they didn't like because they were aggressive, there's me, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors; not too many names would come up.
There are truckloads of broccoli at this very minute descending on Washington. My family is divided. For the broccoli vote out there: Barbara loves broccoli. She has tried to make me eat it. She eats it all the time herself. So she can go out and meet the caravan of broccoli that's coming in.
John McEnroe looks as if he is serving round the edge of an imaginary building.
John McEnroe is the most honest and real person I have ever interviewed.
John McEnroe's so good. Against him, all you can do is shake hands and take a shower.
I'm an American. You can't go on where you were born. If you do then John McEnroe would be a German.
I never suspected that we or any one person or program can create Serena Williams or John McEnroe or Pete Sampras.
Being on tour sends me crazy, I drink too much and out comes the John Mcenroe in me.
Tennis has to be very careful.Not everyone is a computer, it is very good we have John McEnroe. I hope we have a couple more.
I do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I'm President of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli.
Look at guys like Larry Bird and George Brett and John McEnroe; that's what they did in their careers. They all wanted to be the guy under the microscope late in the game or late in the match. So you just take on that know-how that that's part of your responsibility, and you learn that's what makes it exciting. That's what makes it fun!
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