Boris Becker

I don’t know how many millions of photographs have been taken of me.

I am thrilled to be the new team captain. I am sure that the pressures I’ve faced on centre court will stand me in good stead to battle it out against Ian and his team.

I drew my strength from fear. Fear of losing. I don’t remember the games I won, only the games I lost.

So this is it. Match point for eternity.

I had the pleasure of competing at the Olympic Games and at Wimbledon and was fortunate enough to win the gold medal in both events,

I lost in the second round of the French Open and had 10 days off. I went to the Hard Rock Cafe. It was exciting to be away from my parents, to stay in a hotel. Hotels at 17 meant freedom.

I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.

Whatever our fate is or may be, we have made it and do not complain of it. – Vronksy (Anna Karenina)

If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books.

Never judge a book by its movie.

As a child I used to read Gone with the Wind over and over again. I wanted to be Scarlett O’Hara. I never wanted to believe that it was possible that there could be infidelity. I never wanted to be believe that it was even possible for a man to look another way, even for a moment. My bubble of monogamy was pierced in a harsh way.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

Books are the best of things if well used; if abused, among the worst. They are good for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system.

So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookshelf on the wall.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must lay it down and commence living on its hint… What I began by reading I must finish by acting.

Classic – A book which people praise and don’t read.

We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of four or five hundred pages.

All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

Some books leave us free and some books make us free.

I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.