“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.”

In boxing, it is about the obsession of getting the most from yourself: wanting to dominate the world like a hungry young lion.

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.

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.

A book is always an emergence above everyday life. A book is expressed life and thus is an addition to life.

The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments.

She sidestepped her mind to breathe in the new day, and ask for her heart to show her the way.

For I now realize that what overcame me that evening was a sudden awareness of the power of intuition, the supra-logic that cuts out all routine processes of thought and leaps straight from problem to answer.

That’s what a DJ is at the end of the day – someone who leads where the music goes. The only thing that’s changed is that in America, people have woken up in the last few years and realized it.

Every day when I get on the floor I give it my all and play because you never know what tomorrow holds.

For I now realize that what overcame me that evening was a sudden awareness of the power of intuition, the supra-logic that cuts out all routine processes of thought and leaps straight from problem to answer.

Losing someone we love, or the fear of losing someone we love one day is a difficult experience and we can all relate to it. None of us are an exception to this reality.