A Quote by Jimmy Connors

With everything else that would swirl around me when I got involved in it, tennis was my main concern. — © Jimmy Connors
With everything else that would swirl around me when I got involved in it, tennis was my main concern.
When I was in grade school and we had to write papers about what we wanted to be when we grew up, I wanted to be a social worker or a missionary or a teacher... Then I got involved with tennis, and everything was just me, me, me. I was totally selfish and thought about myself and nobody else, because if you let up for one minute, someone was going to come along and beat you. I really wouldn't let anyone or any slice of happiness enter... I didn't like the characteristics that it took to become a champion.
I was in a movie for five minutes where I play tennis and I was given five tennis lessons for free. I never had a tennis lesson. I was like, that's awesome! When else would I have taken up tennis?
I got involved as an activist when I was in high school, around the Iraq war. That's how I got involved. It seemed like, OK, we're going to go to war. It doesn't seem like a good idea. Someone should do something. I'm looking around and, like, I am someone, and I might not be able to do everything, but I can do something.
It was Rachel Carson's famous book 'Silent Spring' that got me involved with the environment. I read it in The New Yorker, in installments. Up to then, I'd thought the main job to do is help the meek inherit the Earth. And I still, that's a job that's got to be done. But I realized if we didn't do something soon, what the meek would inherit would be a pretty poisonous place to live.
I think my family needs me more than anybody else, and tennis doesn't need me anymore. I respect my wife a lot for taking all that in. She said, 'I didn't marry a tennis player; you'd retired.' Now it's time to do something else.
Rhythm, melody, message, that's what matters. Our main concern coming out of the gate is to make sure those foundations are strong, the songs are speaking to us. Everything else, horns and strings, is sweetening.
I couldn’t help but think about school and everything else ending. I liked standing just outside the couches and watching them—it was a kind of sad I didn’t mind, and so I just listened, letting all the happiness and the sadness of this ending swirl around in me, each sharpening the other. For the longest time, it felt kind of like my chest was cracking open, but not precisely in an unpleasant way.
I think I've already got the main thing I've always wanted, which is to be somebody, to have an identify. I'm Althea Gibson, the tennis champion. I hope it makes me happy.
I'd like to have younger people around me and that I'll be involved with them a lot more now, as opposed to me being the main focal point.
I'm so lucky, I'm just really grateful for what I've got around me - children and my wife and everything else.
I got involved in the design process a long time ago. I've been working with their main designer [Berlei] for a while. It's been really fun all around.
If I was the type of person who had tennis, tennis, tennis all the time and I went to bed and ended up dreaming about tennis, I would go nuts.
My main concern when travelling around the world is finding a place to skateboard!
It was tennis that got me started in business. When I was 16 and about to embark on my A-levels, I set up a tennis academy and became one of the youngest qualified tennis coaches in the country. It did well; by the time I was 19 I was able to buy my first house.
Listen, first of all, my wife is my best friend. My love for her is deeper than anything. The reality is, I'm not involved, I wasn't involved and I'm not going to be involved. Am I concerned for both of them Sure there's concern from me. I'm more worried about them than me. I'm like you guys, I'm trying to figure it all out.
I've got so much going on in my day job. And I've been around politics enough to know all the swirl that's fit to print, and so I focus on the reality of the here and now.
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