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

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

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

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 Quote

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 Quote

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

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

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 Quote

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

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

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

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 Quote

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 Quote

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

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 Quote

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

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

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 Quote

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 Quote

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 Quote

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 Quote

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 Quote

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 Quote

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

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 Quote

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

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

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 Quote

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 Quote

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

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 Quote

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 Quote

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

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 Quote