“Sportsmen just do what they do. I’m not trying to be a role model. If there’s any inspiration people can take from me, take as much as you can – from my good and my bad.”

Just set yourself a goal and try and stick to it. Because you’ll always end up better than where you started.

Prayer is a method practised from ancient days, so it’s very important for us to maintain a spiritual connection, something that people, gladiators would do years ago, so we’re just maintaining that routine.

This is boxing, not tennis. Everyone likes a bit of rivalry, it makes for a good fight.

You’re confident, you’re going to the ring to fight, but there’s always that little thing where you’re thinking, ‘God.’ You’re nervous. But you have to embrace it and enjoy it.

The belt doesn’t represent me; it’s how you deal with people, how you represent yourself as a champion. The belt is a sign of a champion, but what makes a champion is the things I have just said.

I don’t have a strict diet; I keep it simple. I try to eat fish, meat, veg and carbs – potatoes and rice – but I’ll try and pack it in because as I’m burning so much energy. I have to see food as an energy source.

I am nice, yeah. I’m cool. But I’m no push-over. And if someone gets one over on me, they’ve done it when my eyes were closed, and it doesn’t happen twice.

There’s this idea that because I’m a heavyweight, I’m not supposed to be in condition, that I should take advantage of the fact that I can eat. But I train and eat well, and it shows when I step on the scales.

I want it all: I want the attention and live for the glory nights.

There’s so much pressure on becoming the next Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson, and if you don’t achieve that in boxing, you’re nothing.

Boxing is the embodiment of who I am, but beyond that, this is a journey of the self, and my obsession to get the most from this short life.

I’ll get seven hours sleep a night, but after breakfast, I’ll have an hour just resting, to recover. In Spain they all have siestas, even businessmen.

Don’t worry about the title. Worry about what you’ve got to do today, tomorrow, the next day, and that title will be waiting for you.

Boxing’s a sport that gives you licence to act like an idiot, I think.

People have built me up to be untouchable, unbeatable, invincible, and I’m not that. I am a man, and I am a winner, but that can change in a second.

When you are caught with a big shot, you don’t really feel it. It’s like being in a car crash, and maybe your arm has been ripped off… it is only when you look down at it that you realise it has happened.

I tried writing a song and it wasn’t very good. I sung it to my mom and she told me it was bad – but I was eight, so it’s okay.

You’re not free unless you can show the good and the bad, all sides of them. So to me, when I play a character, it’s important that I can show every aspect of them.

I think slavery is the next thing to hell. If a person would send another into bondage, he would, it appears to me, be bad enough to send him into hell if he could.

Good Times Become Good Memories, But Bad Times Make Good Lessons.

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.

The only thing more contagious than a good attitude is a bad one.

Drugs are bad for you. They will fuck you up.

If Thomas Jefferson thought taxation without representation was bad, he should see how it is with representation.