“You’re hated by some, loved by others, but that’s what’s great about being different. If everybody loved you, that means you’re not doing the right thing most of the time.”

Boxers are resilitant guys. We know how to take of a big punch that hits us, we know how to survive. Oscar is a survivor, he’s gonna be back bigger and stronger.

The streets was basically my parents.

Understand that I’m at my best when it comes to proving a point, not only to show that I’m a better fighter and a better athlete at 40½ years old, but I’m at my best when I know I’ve got to beat the system again.

I’m 100 percent clean. I’m doing this off of nuts and bananas.

The only thing I can do is be right about what I say. Because I know I’m being watched. I understand what I’m facing. All I can do is put the work behind it.

I am going in there to win this fight. I don’t think people are taking me seriously. I’m gonna surprise a lot of people. This guy helped two people make history.

I like Sergio Martinez. I think he’s strong, he’s gritty, he’s got plenty of heart, he’s not the fanciest guy you might have seen in boxing but he has the goods to be around a long time in the Middleweight division.

The NBA has a voice that’s why they have a lockout. The NFL has a voice that’s why they had a lockout. Boxing is the only sport that’s individually represented the individual people – Managers, Promoters and Boxers.

The only way you can get experience is from the clock. Time works with some people and against some people. Fortunately, the clock has worked in my favor.

If you don’t know your own value, somebody will tell you your value, and it’ll be less than you’re worth.

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.

There’s this really awesome theory of human motivation – that human beings all want three things. One is to be competent, one is to belong, and one is be free, as in to have choice: to not be told what to do but to choose what to do.

I was probably a terrible husband, but I pride myself on being a good dad.

No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.

The act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help.

I thought, briefly, that I would never feel as intensely connected to the world, to another human being, as I did at that moment.

Being honest doesn’t mean you say whatever you want, wherever you want. It means that what you choose to say is true.

I don’t have any special passion for politics, it being a never-ending merry-go-round of bosses big and small, all generally mediocre. I actually find it boring.

My work stops at publication. If the books don’t contain in themselves their reasons for being – questions and answers – it means I was wrong to have them published.