“No doubt about it, in my career Ron Lyle hit me the hardest. One time he hit me so hard I didn’t see it until I saw it on film when I woke up!”

To be successful in life, you must get in the habit of turning negatives into positives.

I do believe he’s the greatest, but forget about boxing – give that to Joe Louis, or somebody – I believe he’s one of the greatest men I’ve ever met.

As bad as your situation may be, someone else always has it worse than you.

My mother was watching on television and she doesn’t want me to hurt anyone.

If you can look in your mother’s eyes and she’s proud of you, then you’re a champion.

All I’ve ever tried to tell anyone is that I’m not a black man or a white man or anything else. All I’ve ever been was an American.

A boxer never sees the big one that hits him.

Anybody going into boxing already has brain damage.

People are hurt in love affairs and never recover, more than a boxing match.

We, too, need to be patient, especially when it comes to reaching new goals.

I am a winner each and every time I go into the ring.

Today the biggest decisions I make aren’t related to the heavyweight title. They are whether I visit McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s, or Jack-in-the-Box.

I respect that you want to protect your niece. You know, I didn’t want my daughter to become a boxer. Neither did Mohammad. But Joe Frazier, on the other hand, he had his baby girl boxing in the crib.

I think its so good for boxing when a new guy or new blood as we call it, makes a big statement.

Heroes have a rough time because they stand up when they ought not to, they speak when they ought not to; they always have to go that extra mile.

Boxing is like jazz. The better it is, the less people appreciate it.

I’ve always been aware that the image you patiently construct for an entire career can be ruined in a minute. It scares you a bit, but that’s the way things are.

Mercy,’ I love conceptually because I feel like you can either think about it as if it were a girl – which it sounds like it could be about a girl – but I like to picture it as ‘pleading for mercy for my career’ type of thing.

Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.

You rarely come across the complete footballer, but Scholes is as close to it as you can get. One of my regrets is that the opportunity to play alongside him never presented itself during my career.

You can’t make somebody understand something if their salary depends upon them not understanding it.

I wanted to be an actor, like, so, so bad. I took acting classes, I auditioned for Disney, and then I realized how nervous I got with remembering lines.

One of my big, big strengths I think early on in my career was that I could learn very quickly. You wouldn’t have to tell me the things 10 times or 50 times until I would understand them. You would only have to tell me two or three times.

If you don’t like what you’re doing, then don’t do it.