Open

To my mind, being with the right woman is true happiness. After

Though I hate tennis, I like the feeling of hitting a ball dead perfect. It’s the only peace. When I do something perfect, I enjoy a split second of sanity and calm.

It’s easier to be free and loose, to be yourself, after laughing with the ones you love.

We bond over one recent movie, Shadowlands, the story of British writer C. S. Lewis. I tell Brooke that the movie struck a chord with me. There was Lewis’s close relationship with his brother. There was his sheltered life, walled off from the world. There was his fear of risk and the pain of love. But then one singularly brave woman makes him see t

Moments before we take the court I wonder why a player as polished and accomplished as Mac needs a hiatus. Then he shows me. He demonstrates the virtue of rest. He beats me soundly, 6–3, 6–3.

I find it surreal, then perfectly normal. I’m struck by how fast the surreal becomes the norm. I marvel at how unexciting it is to be famous, how mundane famous people are. They’re confused, uncertain, insecure, and often hate what they do. It’s something we always hear—like that old adage that money can’t buy happiness—but we never believe it unti

despite years of semiretirement, despite all her self-doubts and nagging fears, she admitted that she was pondering a comeback to the concert stage. I urged her to do it. I told her it was wrong to deprive the world of that voice, that astonishing voice. Above all, I told her that it would be dangerous to surrender to fear. Fears are like gateway d

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 talk about my father. I tell J.P. about the yelling, the pressure, the rage, the abandonment. J.P. gets a funny look on his face. You do realize, don’t you, that God isn’t anything like your father? You know that—don’t you? I almost drive the Corvette onto the shoulder. God, he says, is the opposite of your father. God isn’t mad at you all the ti