"I'm not a God, I make mistakes"
About this Quote
The power of Boris Becker saying "I'm not a God, I make mistakes" is how aggressively ordinary it sounds coming from someone the sports machine keeps trying to turn into a monument. Elite athletes are sold as inevitabilities: superhuman bodies, superhuman focus, superhuman moral clarity. Becker punctures that myth with a blunt, almost impatient reminder that the highlight reel is not a theology.
The line carries the weary subtext of someone reacting to judgment that’s bigger than the actual error. Athletes don’t just lose matches; they “choke.” They don’t just have messy relationships or bad finances; they “fall from grace.” That’s religious language, and Becker answers it in kind: stop worshipping me, stop pretending my failures are heresy. It’s also a subtle rebuke to fans and media who demand both perfection and access, treating a public figure’s private life as part of the ticket price.
Context matters because Becker’s career and post-career have been shadowed by public scrutiny far beyond his teenage Wimbledon miracle: controversy, tabloid exposure, and later very real legal consequences. The quote reads less like PR humility and more like a defensive boundary, an attempt to reclaim the right to be flawed without being dehumanized.
It works because it’s not eloquent. It’s simple, almost flat, which is the point: the celebrity-industrial complex thrives on myth, and Becker reaches for the plainest tool available - the human sentence.
The line carries the weary subtext of someone reacting to judgment that’s bigger than the actual error. Athletes don’t just lose matches; they “choke.” They don’t just have messy relationships or bad finances; they “fall from grace.” That’s religious language, and Becker answers it in kind: stop worshipping me, stop pretending my failures are heresy. It’s also a subtle rebuke to fans and media who demand both perfection and access, treating a public figure’s private life as part of the ticket price.
Context matters because Becker’s career and post-career have been shadowed by public scrutiny far beyond his teenage Wimbledon miracle: controversy, tabloid exposure, and later very real legal consequences. The quote reads less like PR humility and more like a defensive boundary, an attempt to reclaim the right to be flawed without being dehumanized.
It works because it’s not eloquent. It’s simple, almost flat, which is the point: the celebrity-industrial complex thrives on myth, and Becker reaches for the plainest tool available - the human sentence.
Quote Details
| Topic | Humility |
|---|
More Quotes by Boris
Add to List
