I think it's fair to say I've always been a boxing fan.

Somebody once said, you have to wait 20 years before you can tell if a movie's any good or not so that's probably true.

I never do, I don't even go to the retrospectives.

Well, we're in show business, and I have been making a living in this business a long time and inevitably it means taking what it is that you've done and hopefully you're showing it to a lot of people who like it.

I guess I never had a better experience than working on The Long Riders, and at the same time, I never had a harder time than what I did making Southern Comfort.

I've always wanted to do a boxing movie.

If I could go back I might change Geronimo a bit. If I do, it will be made a longer version.

I tend not to look back. It's confusing.

You as an audience can look at these things as films, but I remember them as social experiences.

It's really about, oh come on, this guy wouldn't say that or he wouldn't do that, you know, it's about the characters, about the story, about the situation.

Well, I'm about to do another western, a pilot for HBO this fall.

I mean no film is beyond criticism, but I think we've made a very modest movie.

Get Miramax to send me down to Australia. I'd like to see it.

I did have an offer to direct one of the Alien movies but I wasn't too excited about all the effects work.

I get a great high from writing.

I think it's fair to say I've always been a boxing fan.

I'll talk about these things, but it's just, you know, you only get so much time and I'm much more interested in what I'm going to be doing next year than in something I did 10 years ago.

I always say the next one is my favorite.

Some say Hollywood movies that are made about boxing are just metaphors for other things, I think I've made one that's actually about boxing and not a metaphor.

Naturally we need black men to give this movie serious credibility.

I don't much like looking back.

I wouldn't not want to be a director and write as I wouldn't not to want to be a writer and direct movies.

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.

I've always wanted to do a boxing movie.

Sure, there have been injuries and deaths in boxing - but none of them serious.

I lost my edge for boxing, I didn't put as much into it as I did before. I didn't run as far. I didn't train as hard. I didn't eat correctly. I started drinking a little bit every now and then.

The bell that tolls for all in boxing belongs to a cash register.

I didn't push Cory. I wanted him to decide if he wanted to go into boxing and he did. Can't blame it on me.

Sorry dude, but we're in a boxing match and you went against your word and tried to make me look weak and stupid in front of 17 million people. That's just not gonna happen.

It's less about the physical training, in the end, than it is about the mental preparation: boxing is a chess game. You have to be skilled enough and have trained hard enough to know how many different ways you can counterattack in any situation, at any moment.