“I wanted to bring people together, and most importantly not feel threatened when they came to watch me box.”

I’ve spent my life navigating through sensitive issues. Not wanting to upset people.

I don’t want to sound obnoxious, but I like to think I brought it another step. I was able to bring people who were casually interested in boxing together.

Boxing is changing and training methods are slowly being dragged into the 21st century.

Work hard, think fast and you’ll last.

What I would say about Barney Eastwood is that when our relationship worked, it worked extremely well. He had a lot of strengths as a promoter and a manager.

A pit bull is like a fighter. Every so often it needs to taste blood.

I’d had 35 professional fights and mentally I was tired of it. I’d sort ot fallen out of love with the sport.

Every fighter has a story that could break your heart. We lose, we get hurt and everything comes apart. That’s when it’s so difficult to stay on the straight and narrow.

The trouble with boxing is that too often it ends in sadness.

If somebody had told me in the 1980s that Gerry Adams would shake hands with Ian Paisley or Peter Robinson I would have said put that man in a white suit and lock him up in a padded cell.

I get people to this day – I won my title 25 years ago – saying how wonderful a time they had during that dark period in our history when they came to watch me fight.

I train very hard, either rowing on the cross trainer or running. Not only do you feel tired afterwards but it relaxes you, it completely clears the head. But to sort things out I also like to walk.

There is nothing like wealth for dulling desire.

Harold Ramis and I together did the ‘National Lampoon Show’ off Broadway, ‘Meatballs,’ ‘Stripes,’ ‘Caddyshack,’ ‘Ghostbusters’ and ‘Groundhog Day.’ He earned his keep on this planet. God bless him.

Age 50 is a lot tougher than 40s

When you’re apart, you want to be with him. When you’re together, you’re conscious of every move he makes, every word he says, and every breath he takes.

When you work as actors in this business, you spend a lot of time apart. That’s why a lot of marriages fail. It’s not because of Hollywood, it’s because you don’t spend time together.

I’m proud of the way I rearrange and put things together, like a chef who makes a great meal, or a filmmaker who puts together a story – it’s casting, editing, cinematography.

When you assemble animation teams the way you do a live-action film, you’re often struggling a bit to get a cohesive team together, so if you have a team that works well together, you’re hoping for another film so that you can refine the team.

We stand strong together – as Americans – many cultures, races and faiths, but one nation under God.

Today whenever women gather together it is not necessarily nurturing. It is coalition building. And if you feel the strain, you may be doing some good work.