See, part of the magic of playing tennis for a living is that it lets you act like a kid for as long
as you can keep going. Now, some of you will say, and I agree, that it’s good to keep that
kid in you, but every kid has to grow up sometime, or else wind up a case of arrested
development.
– John McEnroe
That’s the question interviewers always work around to asking me. How did you get that
way? And the first thing I tell them is, I’m a New Yorker. New Yorkers don’t hold anything
back – sitting in traffic or just walking down the street, we lay it on the line, and we don’t
whisper when we do it.
– John McEnroe
Where money and publicity meet, there’s always excitement, but good behaviour is rarely a
part of the mix. Manners are the operating rules of more stable systems.
– John McEnroe
That’s the funny thing about tennis points, and games: They may be awe-inspiring at the
moment, but then – except for the videotape, which really tells only a bit of the story – the
moment is gone. They’re like poetry written on water.
– John McEnroe
One of the things I’m striving to come to terms with is the deep-down part of me that isn’t
completely willing to give up my anger. After all, I feel certain that it’s part of what drove me
to the top, and though I may not be at the top of my game anymore, that fire in my belly is
still hot. Where would I be if I let it go out? And what exactly do I need it for now?
– John McEnroe
People always ask if I had a temper when I was a kid. There’s a famous story about Bjorn
Borg: When he was nine or ten years old, he lost a point and threw his racket down, and his
father wouldn’t let him play for six months. He never threw his racket again. Maybe that
should’ve happened to me!
– John McEnroe
As I moved to the top of pro tennis, though, cockiness became a survival mechanism. I don’t
care who you are, Borg or Sampras or Michael Chang – you can’t exist at the top without it.
Self-confidence is a must, and so is selfishness.
– John McEnroe
Tennis, obviously, turned out ot be an incredible thing for me, an amazing roller-coaster ride,
and a lot more good came out of it than bad, but the truth is that I didn’t really want to
pursue it until it just pursued me.
– John McEnroe
Over 1,000 officials to choose from and I get a moron like you.
– John McEnroe
Tennis players should be far more involved in charity work. The sport should champion a
couple of causes as a group and try to make a real difference – the kind of difference that
Andre Agassi and Andrea Jaeger have made, Andre with his school for disadvantaged kids in
Las Vegas, and Andrea with her Silver Lining Ranch for terminally ill children in Aspen,
Colorado.
– John McEnroe
I firmly believe that one of the hallmarks of a champion – any champion – is the ability to
absorb losses and regain confidence immediately.
– John McEnroe
In any sport, you have enemies as well as friends… sometimes, though, it’s easier to have
enemies than to have friends – especially if your friends happen to be fellow professional
tennis players and you’re on your way to being number one in the world. It may be a cliche
that it’s lonely at the top, but just because it’s a cliche doesn’t mean it ‘s not true.
– John McEnroe
My greatest strength is that I have no weaknesses.
– John McEnroe
Bob Dylan concert in London, 1994: After the concert, I was invited backstage, where I
walked into a room that had five people in it: Dylan, Chrissie Hynde, George Harrison and his
son Dhani, and one guy I didn’t recognize. I went up to the guy and said, “I’m – John McEnroe,
who are you?” He said, “I’m Bozo the fucking clown.” It turned out to be Van Morrison. I’ll
never forget the first thing Dylan said to me: “I heard you can dunk a basketball, and you
play great guitar, and I know Carlos Santana wouldn’t lie.” It pained me to have to disillusion
him on both counts.
– John McEnroe
Princess Diana, she used to come watch the tennis at Wimbledon. And even though she had
it 1,000 times worse than I ever did, she pulled me aside a few times and said, “I really feel
for you.”
– John McEnroe
I truly do wonder sometimes: Will I be totally forgotten at some point? Will I end up walking
around wishing for what I don’t have anymore? People always seem to want what they can’t
have, which seems a rather pathetic part of human nature to me. Will I be the guy going
around saying, “Hey, remember me?”
– John McEnroe
Becker was a big guy with a huge serve; he was deliberately intimidating. He always walked
around with his chest stuck out, like “Oh, you’re lucky we didn’t win World War Two.”
– John McEnroe
Week by week, I was rising to new heights, and when you ascend that quickly, and at such
an early age, the oxygen doesn’t always flow to your brain.
– John McEnroe
I call tennis “the lazy man’s game” now. Guys rely on giant serves and huge groundstrokes,
but little thought, strategy, or passion goes into it – or so it seems. That’s largely why no
one truly dominates the sport now. There’s loads of talent out there – just look at players
such as Lleyton Hewitt, Gustavo Kuerten, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, and Marat Safin. But does
anybody have the fire of Connors, the dedication of Lendl, or the physical presence of Borg?
Not that I’m aware of, at least not yet.
– John McEnroe, 2002
In between rounds at Wimbledon in 1982, I struggled to learn David Bowie’s “Suffragette City”
and “Rebel, Rebel” in my hotel flat. I heard a knock on my door. It was David Bowie. “Come up
and have a drink,” he told me. “Just don’t bring your guitar.”
– John McEnroe
Golf is not a sport – it’s an artistic exercise like ballet. You can be a fat slob and still play
golf.
– John McEnroe
It’s a sad fact about tennis – and probably other sports as well – that when you lose your
confidence in your game, you lose a bit of confidence in yourself as a person. It’s hard to
overcome that feeling. You always have to fight the thought, “I’m a loser; I’m not the same
person I was,” when, in fact, you may very well be a better person in certain ways.
– John McEnroe
After I won the ’81 U.S. Open, I was invited to the White House – and I didn’t want to go! It
was on a day’s notice, the meeting was set for early in the morning; it all just felt too
inconvenient. My mother said, “You’ve been invited to meet the President and you’re thinking
of not going? You’re going.” I went. It was the story of my life – I always had to be pushed. I
was glad I did go, too: I had never met a President before, and I felt something very special
about Ronald Reagan. He was funny; he seemed to have a way with people; he had a real
presence about him. And – having said all that – he had absolutely no clue who I was!
– John McEnroe
I saw early on that there were a lot of great advantages to winning, but there was also one
big disadvantage: Once you’re on that pedestal, you’re alone.
– John McEnroe
I still have my guitars, I still jam with my friends, but my gigging days are over. Yes, the
world is a safer place.
– John McEnroe
My growing confidence in the tennis world sometimes came across as cockiness, and the
tricky thing about cockiness is that, while it’s an absolute survival mechanism for a
tournament tennis player, it can backfire once you get off the court. It can also impress
other people – women among them – for the wrong reasons. So, between my shyness and my
audacity, most people tended to overlook my real self.
– John McEnroe
Everybody loves success, but they hate successful people.
– John McEnroe
Despite Pat Cash’s statement that the only way I would ever get into Buckingham Palace
would be by climbing the fence – on the middle Sunday of Wimbledon in 2000, I rode through
the palace gates and up to a hard court in the middle of the magnificient grounds, where
Bjorn and I proceded to play a pleasantly relaxed charity exhibition in front of a small group of
invited guests that included Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.
– John McEnroe
He’s a bit anal, he thinks the whole world is against him and that everyone is screwing him on
some level. He’s always been like that and he always will be.
– John McEnroe, on Jimmy Connors
I had enough inner strength to know I could beat anyone at all, anytime, on any surface.
There was always a devil inside me whom I had to fight. And the devil was fear of failure.
– John McEnroe