Pressure is how you know everything’s working, - Andre Agassi

It's one of those showers that make you think you should write a check to several environmental groups – and maybe plant a tree.

Gil likes to yell at me when I'm working out, but it's nothing like my father's yelling. Gil yells love. If I'm trying to set a new personal best, if I'm preparing to lift more than I've ever lifted, he stands in the background and yells, Come on, Andre! Let's go! Big Thunder! His yelling makes my heart club against my ribs. Then, for an added dash of inspiration, he'll sometimes tell me to step aside, and he'll lift his personal best- 550 lbs. It's an awesome sight to see a man put up that much iron above his chest, and it always make me think that anything is possible. How beautiful to dream. But dreams, I tell Gill, in one of our quiet moments, are so dam 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. p155

My father says that if I hit 2,500 balls each day, I’ll hit 17,500 balls each week, and at the end of one year I’ll have hit nearly one million balls. He believes in math. Numbers, he says, don’t lie. A child who hits one million balls each year will be unbeatable.