Andre Agassi Quotes

Older people make this mistake all the time with younger people, treating them as a finished product when in fact they are in process.

When you chase perfection, when you make perfection the ultimate goal, do you know what you’re doing? You’re chasing something that doesn’t exist. You’re making everyone around you miserable.
You’re making yourself miserable. Perfection? There’s about five times a year you wake up perfect, when you can’t lose to anybody, but it’s not those five times a year that make a tennis player. Or a human being, for that matter. It’s the other times. It’s all about your head, man.
-Brad Gilbert

Few of us are granted the grace to know ourselves, and until we do, maybe the best we can do is be consistent.

Tennis is the loneliest sport

Freed from the thoughts of winning, I instantly play better. I stop thinking, start feeling. My shots become a half-second quicker, my decisions become the product of instinct rather than logic.

I tell the players: You'll hear a lot of applause in your life, fellas, but none will mean more to you than that applause-from your peers. I hope each of you hears that at the end.

Walking to the net, I'm certain that I've lost to the better man, the Everest of the next generation. I pity the young players who will have to contend with him. I feel for the man who is fated to play Agassi to his Sampras. Though I don't mention Pete by name, I have him uppermost in my mind when I tell reporters: It's real simple. Most people have weaknesses. Federer has none.

I've been cheered by thousands, booed by thousands, but nothing feels as bad as the booing inside your own head during those ten minutes before you fall asleep.

How beautiful to dream. But dreams, I tell Gil, in one of our quiet moments are so damned tiring.
He laughs.
I can't promise you that you won't be tired, he says. But please know this. There's a lot of good waiting for you on the other side of tired. Get yourself tired, Andre. That's where you're going to know yourself. On the other side of tired.

"I slide to my knees and say, "Please let this be over." Then, I'm not ready for it to be over."

No matter what your life is, choosing it changes everything.

If you don’t practice you don’t deserve to win.

Control what you can control.

I can’t promise you that you won’t be tired, he says. But please know this. There’s a lot of good waiting for you on the other side of tired. Get yourself tired, Andre. That’s where you’re going to know yourself. On the other side of tired.

You know everything you need to know about people when you see their faces at the moments of your greatest triumph.