Boris Becker

Thats the hard part about sport: as men we havent started to be in our prime, but as athletes we are old people. I needed support. I lost trust and did stupid things.

When I was a child, I had posters of James Dean in my room. I was a big admirer of his work and was fascinated by him living on the edge. Looking back, my life was kind of the same.

Its silly to say it about a tennis player, but Im an unbelievable hero in Germany. And Germany needs heroes more than any place.

I haven’t lost a war. No one got killed. I just lost a tennis match.

The boys are so powerful off of the baseline now that they don’t have to come to the net to finish points. That’s the reason we went to the net. To finish the point. Nowadays, even the big guys can hit winners four feet behind the baseline.

Tennis is a psychological sport, you have to keep a clear head. That is why I stopped playing.

I was lucky I always got along with girls. It was never like a big deal. I had a lot of girls that I was friends with that I wasn’t sexual with. I think having two older sisters made me comfortable like that. I just like people, so I can just go up and say whatever.

My dad used to say, ‘You wouldn’t worry so much about what people thought about you if you knew how seldom they did.

I probably didn’t handle things as diplomatically as I should.

Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories.

The best present a man can give a woman is his undivided attention.

Why do so many marriages fail? Because nobody gets taught how to be married. We’re not taught how to pick a mate, or why to pick a mate; we don’t know how to manage our emotions once we’re in a marriage; we don’t know how to resolve marital conflict. Married people have never been taught why they or their spouses feel the way they do and act the way they do. Nobody has ever taught us the fundamentals.

I can replace things, but I could never replace my wife and kids.

One day it just hit me. This is it. You are not in love. So either stay in it because you have a child or be brave and find the man of your dreams and marry him for real.

One of the reasons why I think that me and Kim are very powerful together isn’t just the concept of celebrity or this mega rap star and this mega-beautiful pop star. It’s something I explain to my girl: She is who she is. I am who I am. We have advisers and friends and everything, but those people are who they are and we are who we are. And what I had to learn from Kim is how to take more of her advice and less of other people’s advice. There’s a lot of Kim K skills that were added. In order to win at life, you need some Kim K skills, period.

To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.

I think I had the best of James [Taylor]. I mean, I was so in love with him. Not with blinders on – I was in love with him because he is a remarkable man, and he gave me a tremendous amount.

No one is your friend who demands your silence or denies your right to grow.

[a metaphor for the end of her marriage] The process of divorce is about loading a blanket, throwing it up, watching it all spin, and worrying what stuff will break when it lands.

No one has done a study on this, as far as I can tell, but I think Facebook might be the first place where a large number of people have come out. We didn’t create that – society was generally ready for that. I think this is just part of the general trend that we talked about, about society being more open, and I think that’s good.

Don’t base a relationship on sex. You need love, compassion and caring. Then sex can be a reflection of that.