I wanted to be a plumber.

You play your character and it isn't right to step out of it. You have to stay in that character.

You open the show with a bang, then don't come back on for 45 minutes.

Rocky Marciano had such guts and heart. He was something special.

And of course coming from Massachusetts, Rocky Marciano was my favorite.

I can tell jokes. I can talk to the audience. I can relax. I can change my songs whenever I want. I can change the tempos. I can change the mood, because I'm in charge.

When you sing a song the way I sing it, you have to use your whole body. It's almost like working out.

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

I don't watch a lot of featherweight fights yet some of those fights are the best fights ever.

You have to remember, I didn't want this life.

Hey, I've been doing what I do for a long time, my friend.

The only good thing about going to the fights is you can go into the green room and you can see some of your old friends that you haven't seen in a long time.

There's nobody in show business that I dislike so I wouldn't want to get in there to hurt anybody.

I used to be afraid of looking at the audience.

I used to have trouble in front of an audience. I felt uncomfortable.

If people like what I do, fine. If they don't, fine.

Why stop now when I'm just getting the hang of it?

I think that people who have Vegas throat are people who sing from their throats only.

I was born in Massachusetts and lived there until I was thirteen years old.

But I don't work out. I pay people to do that for me.

Ali and I have become friends over the years. I was on a plane with him one time when he was the champion.

Joe Louis was one of my first heroes.

When I sing full-on I use my whole body. I open my throat and let it fly out.

Ali's daughter is fighting and Joe Frazier's daughter is fighting as well.

I wanted to be a plumber.

I like being on this stage because it keeps me thinking.

It's obvious that they're going to want Ali's daughter and Frazier's daughter to fight it out.

I only eat one meal a day. Lunch, not dinner.

I'm a performer. We don't retire.

Management is all about managing in the short term, while developing the plans for the long term.

You cannot climb the ladder of success dressed in the costume of failure.

You think I'm giving up. I'm not. I'm giving in.

I'm sure my children will be artists. I hope they will direct because it is much more interesting. Acting is great, and I love it, but it is very passive, and it depends on other people's desire, and you depend on others all the time.

Probably the happiest period in life most frequently is in middle age, when the eager passions of youth are cooled, and the infirmities of age not yet begun; as we see that the shadows, which are at morning and evening so large, almost entirely disappear at midday.

Writing is hard.

I was way too hyperactive to study for long. I would freak out, then crash, then be too tired to read or write. I really should have had less sugar.

Many of my staff have been with me for over 20 years. I have a great team, and I make sure they feel respected and appreciated.

Some pacifists have carried the sound idea of the prime importance of security too far, to the point of declaring that any consideration of disarmament is superfluous and pointless as long as eternal peace has not been attained.

One of the most admirable effects of Holy Communion is to preserve the soul from sin and to help those who fall through weakness to rise again. It is much more profitable then to approach this divine Sacrament with love respect and confidence than to remain away through an excess of fear and scrupulosity.

Bread is the king of the table and all else is merely the court that surrounds the king. The countries are the soup the meat the vegetables the salad but bread is king.

Even very little things can change your destiny and throw you to a different path, to a different fate; you must never forget that even very little things have great powers!

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.

Enlightenment is in the end nothing more than the natural state of being.

The only protection as a historian is to institute a process of research and writing that minimizes the possibility of error. And that I have tried to do, aided by modern technology, which enables me, having long since moved beyond longhand, to use a computer for both organizing and taking notes.

It usually takes two people a little while to learn where the funny buttons are and testy buttons are.

Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country's ruin!

Democracy is the name we give the people whenever we need them.

There is no substitute for face-to-face reporting and research.

The man who does more than he is paid for will soon be paid for more than he does.