Start Where You Are, Use

I Have Always Drawn Strength From Being Close To Home.

I Have Tried To Keep On With My Striving Because This Is The Only Hope I Have Of Ever Achieving Anything Worthwhile And Lasting.

There Were Times When I Asked Myself Whether I Was Being Principled Or Simply A Coward.... I Was Wrapped In The Cocoon Of Tennis Early In Life, Mainly By Blacks Like My Most Powerful Mentor, Dr. Robert Walter Johnson Of Lynchburg, Virginia. They Insisted That I Be Unfailingly Polite On The Court, Unfalteringly Calm And Detached, So That Whites Could Never Accuse Me Of Meanness. I Learned Well. I Look At Photographs Of The Skinny, Frail, Little Black Boy That I Was In The Early 1950s, And I See That I Was My Tennis Racquet And My Tennis Racquet Was Me. It Was My Rod And My Staff.

If I Didn't Play Tennis I Probably Would Have To See A Psychiatrist.

I Keep Sailing On In This Middle Passage. I Am Sailing Into The Wind And The Dark. But I Am Doing My Best To Keep My Boat Steady And My Sails Full.