Rafael Nadal

I was passionate about soccer. I still am. Odd, though – playing soccer always made me much more anxious than playing tennis. On soccer days, I’d be out of bed by 6 in the morning, all nervous. But I was always calm when it was time for a tennis match. I still don’t know why.

I don’t have any idols, any heroes, nothing, no.

I would love to learn other languages, maybe French? My uncle speaks German so maybe also German? Chinese seems to be too difficult.

I learned during all my career to enjoy suffering.

If you want to belong to the best, you need good technique and, perhaps even more importantly, a good eye. If you see the ball sooner, you have more time to think about how and where to return it.

Some people may learn something from the way I play tennis. But there are also players who are better than me in certain techniques.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

A man is as old as his arteries.

Now I’m a warrior.

To be good is not enough; a man must be good for something.

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.

Do all the other things, the ambitious things-travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes…but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness.

I know the sun rises in the eat and sets in the west, that I am ten fingers and ten toes and ten thousand reasons short of explaining what it is I can’t explain to you. And I know that I will always love you in certainties.

One side of unhealthy relating is if you are always pursuing or always retreating.

A committee can make a decision that is dumber than any of its members.

If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?

Faith, n.: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

We are what and where we are because we have first imagined it.

An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.

When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion.

Awareness without action is worthless.