I hope that I have accomplished just one thing: that I have been a credit to tennis and my country.

Being champion is all well and good, but you can't eat a crown.

In the field of sports you are more or less accepted for what you do rather than what you are.

No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you.

Shaking hands with the Queen of England was a long way from being forced to sit in the colored section of the bus going into downtown Wilmington, North Carolina.

In sports, you simply aren't considered a real champion until you have defended your title successfully. Winning it once can be a fluke; winning it twice proves you are the best.

I don't want to be put on a pedestal. I just want to be reasonably successful and live a normal life with all the conveniences to make it so.

Most of us who aspire to be tops in our fields don't really consider the amount of work required to stay tops.

I was nervous and confident at the same, nervous about going out there in front of all those people, with so much at stake, and confident that I was going to go out there and win.

Winning once can be a fluke; winning twice proves you are the best.

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.

There is truth and knowledge beyond present understanding.

Don’t you understand that freedom depends upon the continuing possibility of rebel violence. When violence becomes unthinkable, freedom dies…

Fashion is that thing that saved me from being sad.

So many of the loveliest things in England are melancholy.

Everything you've ever wanted is on the other side of fear.

Don't let a week go by without conferences with each player, you can't teach it all on the floor.

There are days when the result is so bad that no fewer than five revisions are required. In contrast, when I'm greatly inspired, only four revisions are needed.

Don't hire a master to paint you a masterpiece and then assign a roomful of schoolboy artists to look over his shoulder and make suggestions.

All satire is blind to the forces liberated by decay. Which is why total decay has absorbed the forces of satire.

Once you believe in yourself and see your soul as divine and precious, you'll automatically be converted to a being who can create miracles.