Sugar Ray Leonard was as close as anyone came after Ali to being Ali, but he wasn't Ali.

In fifty years of covering the sport, of course Muhammad Ali is by far the dominant figure.

Cliches and adjectives permeated my prose.

It's kind of ironic that the two sports with the greatest characters, boxing and horse racing, have both been on the decline. In both cases it's for the lack of a suitable hero.

Sportswriters have changed more than sportswriting.

All of journalism is a shrinking art. So much of it is hype. The O.J. Simpson story is a landmark in the decline of journalism.

I just can't believe all the things I did that decade.

If I got paid, it was no more than five dollars a column, and I still think I was overpaid.

I was also in love with the English language.

I wanted to be a sportswriter because I loved sports and I could not hit the curve ball, the jump shot, or the opposing ball carrier.

I worked with Rocky Graziano and Rocky was certainly a character.

I began learning the sportswriting business very early in life.

Sugar Ray and talked about doing some articles together or writing a book together but dealing with Sugar Ray was a lot like fighting him. He would fake you in and then he'd drop you.

I got to know Sugar Ray but I certainly would not say we were good friends.

I think on balance, Don King has been bad for boxing. I think he's done some very good things and I think he did a heck of a job of promoting Ali but I think I could have promoted Ali.

I did not choose necessarily on the basis of significance. If you have a vote for the most significant athlete, then you have Ali, then you have Babe Ruth, then you have Michael Jordan.

Some people who love boxing might love Mike Tyson, but people outside of the sport are generally repulsed by him and therefore, repulsed by the sport.

I came up with new leads for game stories by being observant and clever, by using the many gifts of the English language to intrigue and hook a reader.

My top three were Jim Brown, Wilt Chamberlain and Bo Jackson.

Sugar Ray Robinson was at the top of the boxing world during the 1950's when it seemed that he would either win or lose the championship about every three or four months.

Today, it's money. There's no question about that. Unless you endorse a grill that cooks hamburgers and steaks, where else can you make the kind of money that you can make in the ring if you're good?

My writing improved the more I wrote - and the more I read good writing, from Shakespeare on down.

I think my mistakes were kind of common - leaning on cliches and adjectives in the place of clear, vivid writing. But at least I knew how to spell, which seems to be a rarity these days.

Also, I am driven by a wonderful muse called alimony.

Sugar Ray Leonard was as close as anyone came after Ali to being Ali, but he wasn't Ali.

I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream.

What I try to do for my readers is to pass on some of the things that I found out about being thirteen after doing it for forty years.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

Young people discovering their sexuality must know they walk with a strong tradition and that they are not alone. They have a right to information without being pressured.

Being a publicist is like management in a lot of ways - you're their friend, you're their mother, you're their confidante.

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.

I became hooked on the idea of being able to shoot an image and process it myself, and end up with a product.

Being a cover artist is not like being a real artist. That's just copying what someone else did.

It is too maddening. I've got to fly off, right now, to some devilish navy yard, three hours in a seasick steamer, and after being heartily sick, I'll have to speak three times, and then I'll be sick coming home. Still, who would not be sick for England?

I don't like being recognised, I have no interest in being famous at all, I just do what I do. If I could be like Captain Kirk and beam myself up and then beam myself down, I would!

I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say.

Being a musician is what I do, but it's not what I am.

We're all like children. We may think we grow up, but to me, being grown up is death, stopping thinking, trying to find out things, going on learning.

We've had it very clear to the Bosnians that our obligation to equip and train their forces is completely conditional on the foreign forces being gone.

My parents were amazing people who had no business being together - and they knew it.

Teachers started recognizing me and praising me for being smart in science and that made me want to be even smarter in science!

Sure, I get the blues. But what I try to do, is apply joy to the blues, you know? I don't know if it's a technique, or just being bent that way, being raised by the folks I was raised by.

Kind thoughts are rarer than either kind words or deeds. They imply a great deal of thinking about others. This in itself is rare. But they also imply a great deal of thinking about others without the thoughts being criticisms. This is rarer still.

The judge turned his back towards me, sitting back on his judge's chair, while I was in the witness stand being questioned. The whole courtroom was full of these anarchists, leftists, communists and Jewish lobbyists.

For me, being in front of the camera and training go hand in hand.

I define success as being comfortable with yourself and your life. And that is about as good as it gets, really.

Being injured is something that happens in this sport. Anybody who gets into it understands that.

PR is extremely important, and being able to use it in the right way means everything. You have to market your success.

Being ill like this combines shock - this time I will die - with a pain and agony that are unfamiliar, that wrench me out of myself.