“I still feel I am that 14-year-old kid, hungry and trying to find a way through life. That’s what I’m trying to develop, trying to be good at something through boxing. But I feel like that young kid who’s trying and trying.”

Wherever you get to is better than where you started. To stay on the road is a massive achievement.

Cardio is a nice way to start the morning, man. Whether you sit on the bike for half an hour or throw on two jumpers and just sweat, it’s good to get up, get the body active, put on your headphones, and just pedal away.

Ali was a legend of our sport. For me as a kid, he inspired me to represent myself like a champion in and out of the ring.

As long as you have discipline, you can be a success. Discipline is what makes you do everything you need to do.

People are paying to see me. You’ve got to give something back.

There are two types of warriors: the one that rides through on his horse and tries to slay everyone, and the sniper. I try to be more like the sniper. Bang. Bang. Bang. Break them down, shot by shot.

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.

What makes a champion great is how he dethrones the guy before him. Look at Mike Tyson against Trevor Berbick and how he crushed him. You have to rip the title away from him.

America is the mecca of boxing, and they’ve had some great champions here. It’s good to establish your skills and let people know what you’re about in the States.

I think towards the end of my career, I’m the man. But right now, I’ve still got that underdog mentality to keep on proving myself time and again. I’m not going to believe the hype.

The mental is more important than the physical. You know, that voice in your head telling you to give up if it gets tough. That’s my main opponent – making sure that if your body wants to stop, your mind won’t let you.

For me to have a cheeky little biscuit, it’s not going to hurt. But I need to control those indulgences. I can’t just be scoffing cakes and biscuits five nights a week.

I kind of focus on my own stuff, really, and then when people come into my territory, I’ve got to fight them away, and that’s what we do every time fight night happens.

People who do crime do it for reward. But you end up in jail – that’s no reward. Through crime, your ambitions are low.

It’s hard to say I don’t like being famous, but how I feel is that I don’t see myself as that person. It baffles me that people would want a picture with me.

I can be the nice family man at home, and then when I go to the gym, maybe sparring with someone, I switch into beast mode. It ain’t pretty.

Your children need your presence more than your presents.

A spoonful of sugar can be as helpful in dealing with foreign diplomats as it is in child psychology, for these are not unrelated fields.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

There’s no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.

Now I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child – What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end.

The world could be fixed of its problems if every child understood the necessity of their existence.

Honestly, I’m not going to lie. I was a good kid.

My dream is like a child and I’m taking all the custody.