If I were to say, ’God, why me?’ about the bad things, then I should have said, ’God, why me?’ about the good things that happened in my life.

Arthur Ashe (1943–1993), the pioneering American tennis champion, reflected on this idea in the late stage of his life after contracting HIV from a blood transfusion during heart surgery in the early 1980s and later developing AIDS. As he faced public scrutiny, illness, and questions of “why” suffering happens, Ashe often framed his response in terms of gratitude and moral consistency: if one challenges God or fate for misfortune, one should also interrogate why one has received unearned blessings. The remark is commonly associated with his public reflections and writing on illness, resilience, and perspective during the early 1990s.

The quotation argues for a symmetrical view of fortune: it is intellectually and spiritually inconsistent to demand an explanation for suffering (“Why me?”) while accepting good luck, privilege, or success as simply deserved. Ashe’s point is not to deny pain but to resist self-centered exceptionalism—whether in hardship or in blessing. The line reframes adversity as part of the same unpredictable distribution of life events that also includes joy and opportunity. In doing so, it encourages humility, gratitude, and a steadier ethical posture: rather than treating misfortune as a personal injustice, one can acknowledge both good and bad as conditions to respond to with character.