“My mom was from Germantown and was of German descent. She was a real force behind me and my dream. She was always my biggest fan, even when I was wrestling at an early age.”

I’ve wined and dined with kings and queens, and I’ve slept in the alley eating pork and beans.

They say behind every successful man is a powerful woman. And there is no more powerful performer I would rather be in the ring with for a conversation than Stephanie McMahon.

I can’t explain it, but from the first day I stepped into a wrestling ring, I knew that one day I was going to be a big superstar. I knew that one day I would be the NWA World Heavyweight Champion like my hero, Lou Thesz.

At the time when I started, coming out of football, I always used a forearm or an elbow. When it became Bionic is when I said it was Bionic. I went to some secret doctor in Istanbul who put some Bionic stuff in there.

The business is my life, the ring my salvation, the locker room and roads my nourishment.

There’s nothing like being a Texan, and I’m proud to be one.

I wasn’t always Rhodes, but I was always Dusty. I was never called Virgil – not by my family, not by my friends. Even my teachers at school didn’t call me Virgil.

You pay your dues and work your way up through the system, whatever system there is – something guys in the business today don’t really understand, don’t have a clue.

Hard times are when a man has worked at a job for 30 years – 30 years – and they give him a watch, kick him in the butt, and say, ‘Hey, a computer took your place, daddy.’ That’s hard times!

If I could not be in this free and wonderful country – I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, mind you – Mexico is where I would live. I love Mexico, and I love the Mexican people.

The combination of old and new is what every wrestling organization should be like. That way, you have a chance to match up the legends in dream main events.

If I’m selling, I want them all selling in the audience. If I’m coming back, I want them all coming back. If I’m bleeding, I want them bleeding. If I win, they win. If I lose, they lose.

One of the regrettable things in my life is that my dad was not around to see my stardom, to see me wrestle or to see what I achieved by the dream I had at an early age, influenced by where he would like to go.

You look at driving down the road, night after night, tryin’ to make a town, getting $25 – that’s hard times. It’s our duty to make it good times for the fans that pay their money to see us perform each and every night.

What takes Hollywood weeks and months to film takes professional wrestlers and the companies behind them literally minutes to put together. A spontaneous explosion of emotion unleashed before your very eyes.

I love teaching. I love coaching. I love teaching communications class. I love giving back to the kids and the industry.

It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.

One can’t feel old in a day or overnight!

I have worked really hard since the age of eight, so each phase of my life is equally important.

If you’re old, don’t try to change yourself, change your environment.

Old age is rather like another country. You will enjoy it more if you have prepared yourself before you go.

I don’t want to know I’m getting older. Then I’ll start to think about getting checkups and insurance. I don’t want that.

Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question.

Once you hit 40, you start reexamining the math of it all. I’ll trade wisdom for youth any day.