“People who do crime do it for reward. But you end up in jail – that’s no reward. Through crime, your ambitions are low.”

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.

As long as you have discipline, you can be a success. Discipline is what makes you do everything you need to do.

People are paying to see me. You’ve got to give something back.

There are two types of warriors: the one that rides through on his horse and tries to slay everyone, and the sniper. I try to be more like the sniper. Bang. Bang. Bang. Break them down, shot by shot.

Sportsmen just do what they do. I’m not trying to be a role model. If there’s any inspiration people can take from me, take as much as you can – from my good and my bad.

What makes a champion great is how he dethrones the guy before him. Look at Mike Tyson against Trevor Berbick and how he crushed him. You have to rip the title away from him.

The idea of putting out an album is quite exciting because it’s sharing your creativity with people. There’s no ambition to be famous. I couldn’t care less about that.

From a very young age I had an ambition to be a musician, and to do that professionally. That’s what I pursued until I was about 20, playing in bands that were taken pretty seriously at that stage.

The average Hollywood film star’s ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend.

Here’s the difficulty about suicide: it is an act of ambition that can be committed only when one has passed beyond ambition.

The best job a man could have would be a chef. They’d understand the long hours I work and the drive and ambition it takes to succeed.

My ambition is to have this wonderful gift produce practical results for the future of commercial flying and for the women who may want to fly tomorrow’s planes.

Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.