Billie Jean King Quotes

You grow and you change, or at least you think you do, but you're kind of the same.

When I was 18, 19, I was presented as the 'aw shucks' Nebraska kid who's coming up with a big serve, and then I flipped out a couple of times, and then I was ueber-brat, when I feel like there's parts of both, but I don't think I am either one, if that makes sense.

No one knows who Peter Parker is. People just know who Spider-Man is. When you get that in the mix of growing up and finding yourself, that's more of a relatable tone than being Captain America and having the country's weight on your shoulders.

Something most people don't know about me is that I never grew up.

If you ask me to play myself, I will not know what to do. I do not know who or what I am.

Because Dad was famous, I was so used to being identified as 'John Huston's daughter' that I couldn't think of myself as anyone else.

I met a lot of famous people when I was about 24. And none of them seemed very appealing. And so I didn't know why I would struggle to be that kind of person.

I am 30, but there are things about me that are still 15.

I could easily not be the person that people know.

I suppose being quite young and being thrust quite dramatically into a large public arena skewered my vision of what it means to live and be a part of something.

I just don't see myself as the heroine in my own narrative.

I never felt like someone who was boyish and coming to terms with asking girls out or anything like that, which was what 'The Big Steal' and 'Spotswood' were about. But I guess that's the impression I left on people.

What I did for a living for so many years separated who I was from what I did.

I think every child actor has that moment where they're like, 'OK, I'm not the same person that I was, and you guys need to see me as something different.'

There are a lot of people who don't know me and what I am all about.

I don't even know who I am. All I know is that I am the sibling, daughter, sister, the friend of somebody, and I need to know who I am outside of that.

My personal life is a big part of who my character is.

For a long time, I felt like my identity was to fight. My identity was to be a world champion. That almost defined me.

I haven't changed, but people's perception changed.

People seem to know more about me than I do.

It's one of those things that gets written off as humorous when you watch a child entertainer try to redefine themselves, but it can be an intense identity crisis.

What's in a name? That is what we ask ourselves in childhood when we write the name that we are told is ours.

Who Am I? Or (Perhaps More Accurately) Who Else Could Be Me?

I remember once imagining what my life would be like, what I'd be like. I pictured having all these qualities, strong positive qualities that people could pick up on from across the room. But as time passed, few became qualities that I actually had. And all the possibilities I faced, and the sorts of people I could be, all of them got reduced every year to fewer and fewer until finally they got reduced to one - to who I am. And that's who I am.

Meg, when people don't know who they are, they are open either to being Xed, or Named