“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 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.

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 know every fight could be my last fight, and if that happens, that’s not just a health issue, but I’ll be knocked off that king’s stool.

No matter how big and strong you are even Tyson said he was scared as hell walking to the ring. Everyone feels the pressure.

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.

The way I meditate is by being organised. I can get real Zen if I go home and tidy the front room.

I didn’t make the most of school, but boxing has given me discipline.

Prayer is a form of meditation, isn’t it? It’s laws of attraction: whatever you put out into the universe is what it receives. It’s just kind of putting your thoughts out into the universe.

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.

The South resented giving the Afro-American his freedom, the ballot box and the Civil Rights Law.

When you have box-office results, Hollywood treats you different. Hollywood stands up. Once you get to the point where Hollywood sees that you create results, then the demand for you becomes higher.

No matter what, people grow. If you chose not to grow, you’re staying in a small box with a small mindset.

I will never say ‘retired’ because that’s such a finality that I don’t want to be part of my life. I’ll work until they throw me in a box.

I had been playing for a while, and I asked Louisville Slugger to send me a dozen flame treated bats. But when I got it, I realized they had sent me a box of ashes.

Any effects created before 1975 were done with either tape or echo chambers or some kind of acoustic treatment. No magic black boxes!

Wealth is not a pizza, where if I have too many slices you have to eat the Domino’s box.

Boxing is limited fighting with a specific rule set. Fighting is true, where you can do anything.