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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.'

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

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.

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.

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

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 was never, ever once angry in the ring.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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'.

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.

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

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.

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

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

I was drawn to boxing because I got beat up as a kid. I was the kid with the piano books in a New York neighbourhood.

In boxing, everybody has their favorites.

People say it's a movie about boxing, but... I don't agree at all. I don't think it's a movie about boxing. Boxing is like a platform. It's just a stage where this is played out.

And I love kick boxing. It's a lot of fun. It gives you a lot of confidence when you can kick somebody in the head.

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.

In those days, boxing was very glamorous and romantic. You listened to fights on the radio, and a good announcer made it seem like a contest between gladiators.

See, I respect boxing because it has given me so much and that's why I will never allow anyone to mistreat the sport of boxing if I can help it.

A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.

Muhammad Ali was the kind of guy you either loved or hated, but you wanted to see him. I happen to really love him. He brought boxing to another level and always made you laugh.

Handball, swimming, running, jumping, basketball, and boxing were as much a part of me as breathing.

Boxing is a lot of white men watching two black men beat each other up.

New York's like a boxing match. In Hollywood, it's like a Fellini movie or something.

All of the sports have a safety net, but boxing is the only sport that has none. So when the fighter is through, he is through. While he was fighting his management was very excited for him, but now that he is done, that management team is moving on.

When I came into boxing, I brought it to the next level with adverts and doing pantomime and people just got jealous of me doing that.

Boxing is show-business with blood.

I've been a boxing fan ever since I was a kid.

A boxing match is like a cowboy movie. There's got to be good guys and there's got to be bad guys. And that's what people pay for - to see the bad guys get beat.

Boxing gave me the opportunities to grow into the person that I am today.

Boxing is a celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for its being lost.

I like boxing movies. One of the hardest things for me to watch as far as boxing films, is the boxing. The actual boxing usually sucks.