“The powers that be don’t want athletes or boxers to become as smart as they are.”

Anybody who thinks I’m taking this fight for a paycheck doesn’t know me. My whole life I’ve been achieving the impossible.

I really didn’t care. I’d do something to somebody and walk in front of them the next day like it never happened. I had very very low value on my own life.

I have the philosophy that I’m different. I have the body, the well-being and the experience. Now the teacher gets to show the student that he’s worthy of the lesson. Let me show him through experience.

I’ve done so many unpredictable things and so profoundly. Even the people who want to go against me, are afraid to go against me. They’ve been wrong so many times. A lot of them are just being mum right now. They must feel I can still do things.

I wouldn’t wanna fight me, because I know it wouldn’t be a good outcome for both.

I was told I would be back in 90 days. If I listened to people, I would be back where I came from – the penitentiary.

I’ve got a history of frustrating guys and making them angry.

There’s no great person that lived that didn’t go through scrutiny or ridicule and prosecution in all types of ways, to be who they are in history.

Prison is a thing where talking gets you killed. What gets you respect is you do. The guy that you fear is a guy that says nothing.

I didn’t need to take any fight for the last 10 years. But I’ve always fought the best and I’ve always wanted to prove myself to the best.

It takes no effort to be ordinary. Ordinary is not even a challenge. You can do nothing and be ordinary.

This is a great position to be in. I don’t really believe there is any fighter, in any decade that can be in my position of luxury that I’ve been in for many years.

I don’t know what being a 48-year-old feels like. There are a lot of 48 year olds that aren’t in good shape. The pharmacy is making a killing off of them.

This fight isn’t about boxing, it’s something deeper than that.

There are so many things I’ve done that the world of boxing has witnessed. It’s going to be difficult for the boxing people to pick one of my performances as the best.

There’s always a chance you will see something new in a fight. Especially in boxing.

I often lose motivation, but it’s something I accept as normal.

When you get a poem [in a public place], it happens to you so suddenly that you don’t have time to deploy your anti-poetry deflector shields that were installed in high school.

You are the only problem you will ever have and you are the only solution.

Consistent motivation usually comes from a consuming desire to be able to perform at your best under pressure, namely, the pressure produced by tough competition.

There isn’t a single motivation, thought, act, or word that has slipped out of your being and escaped the full, undivided attention of God.

The tragedy of life is not found in failure but complacency. Not in you doing too much, but doing too little. Not in you living above your means, but below your capacity. It’s not failure but aiming too low, that is life’s greatest tragedy.

A well-cultivated mind is, so to speak, made up of all the minds of preceding ages; it is only one single mind which has been educated during all this time.

You have to have a lot of motivation, a lot of heart and be able to work hard. You can never be down on yourself because baseball is a sport that will bring you down [at times].