“This guy’s a clown! He’s just all talk!’ I’ve heard that many times in my career. And then they’re sleeping in the middle of the octagon.”

People think hard sparring will get you sharp. And you do get sharp in the gym. But anytime I’ve trained that way, I’ve actually been a little bit flatter in the fight. And the knockout shot hasn’t come. It’s almost because my training has been too hard.

I certainly would not like to end up in a tie-up with Ms. Rousey.

Everything I’ve been thinking, every vision, even down to every shot I throw, it just ends up here in reality.

Ritual is another word for fear, manifested in a different way.

I don’t care about other sports. I don’t care about anything I don’t need to care about. This is my sport: it is my life. I study it; I think about it all the time. Nothing else matters.

People think I’m a celebrity. I’m not a celebrity.

We come bulletproof in Ireland. We’re reared tough, and we fight.

I’ve learned new footwork patterns that are very unusual. I’ve learned how to find a lower centre of gravity, and I’ve found more angles to throw shots.

I have the greatest job in the world. I get paid loads of cash for beating the crap out of people. And I’m very good at it.

I never got into training to be an All-Ireland boxing champ or to win a belt. At the start, I just got into it to learn how to defend myself when I got into situations.

Not a lot of people or pros in this game know how to train correctly. That’s why they don’t have a long career. Their body gets banged up. They get into a rhythm of heavy sparring and heavy work, but through that, they’re limiting movement.

What can I say? I’m a talker.

I see fighters make funny videos about me and stick them on Facebook and get 20 likes.

If people want to believe in this god or that god, that’s fine by me; believe away. But I think we can be our own gods. I believe in myself.

I think I am the greatest fighter in any class. I know I can hold two, maybe even three belts.

I just figured out that if I gave my all into this game – if I put everything into the fight business – then I would eventually run the fight business.

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern.

You never know what class you belong to unless you’re one of the two or three people that have been in the same echelon for a long, long time.

With all this stuff going on, with the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” and things like that, we are second-class citizens, definitely.