Joe Frazier

Work is the only meanin' I've ever known.

This ultimate fighting stuff is something I don't agree with. Once a man is down, you have to let him have a chance to prove how good he is.

Life doesn't run away from nobody. Life runs at people.

Trust me. Sometimes God comes down and puts his hand on you if you're too big in your thoughts.

I wasn't a big guy. People thought the big guys would eat me up. But it was the other way around. I loved to fight bigger guys.

I want to hit him, step away and watch him hurt. I want his heart.

This is just another man, another fight, another payday.

I grew up in Beaufort, South Carolina, in a six-room farmhouse with a couple of leaning posts to keep it from fallin'. I came up in a time when men were men.

Ali would not be Ali unless I had come along. Him and me had three fights.

It was all about the ring. That's where you got your brains shook and the money took.

My left eye went when I was young. I was working the speed bag, and some steel went in the eye and scratched it to pieces. I was kinda blind in that eye.

When I was a boy, I used to pull a big cross saw with my dad. He'd use his right hand, so I'd have to use my left.

I was never, ever once angry in the ring.

I hated Ali. God might not like me talking that way, but it's in my heart.

When I go out there, I have no pity on my brother. I am out there to win.

There are places on a man's head that are as hard as a rock. Your head's actually stronger than your body. And you don't have too many instruments up there workin'.

When I go out there, I have no pity on my brother. I'm out there to win.

We're in Manila. Come on, gorilla; this is a thriller.

Ali even told me in the ring, 'You can't beat me - I'm your Lord.' I just told him, 'Lord, you're in the wrong place tonight.'

Since I was a boy of five or six, I had it in my mind I would be a world boxing champion.

I had my Olympic gold medal cut up into eleven pieces. Gave all eleven of my kids a piece. It'll come together again when they put me down.

I know my destiny. I was born into animosity, bigotry and hatred. We had water for white folks, and water for coloured folks. White lines, black lines. I came from Beaufort in South Carolina, and it was tougher than Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.

I went to see President Nixon at the White House. It wasn't difficult to get a meeting because I was heavyweight champion of the world. So I came to Washington and walked around the garden with Nixon, his wife and daughter. I said: I want you to give Ali his licence back. I want to beat him up for you.

I don't think a man has to go around shouting and play-acting to prove he is something. And a real man don't go around putting other guys down, trampling their feelings in the dirt, making out they're nothing.

Preaching don't mean you are a true man. You got to go out and do.

Ali always said I would be nothing without him. But what would he have been without me?

The way I fight, it's not me beatin' the man. I make the man whip himself.

Boxing is the only sport you can get your brain shook, your money took and your name in the undertaker book.