“I want to be the poster child for taking care of yourself after 40. Obesity is an epidemic in this country and I’m a living, breathing example of what it means to stay healthy.”

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.

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.

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.

I’m not an evangelical, because that means that I exclude the Catholics and main-liners, and Orthodox.

Grace means we can put the chalk away and stop keeping score!

I think age is terribly overrated. You’re okay as long as you don’t grow up. By all means grow old, but don’t mature. Remain childlike, retain wonder, the ability to be flabbergasted by something.

If there’s any mystery to me at all, it’s probably due to the fact that I’m not online and don’t go to conventions–which means that I’m probably not as accessible to fans as most writers are these days. If that makes me seem like a weird recluse, so be it.

Upper class to me means you are either born into wealth or you’re Royalty.

Do the story in the way it really demands to be done, which may mean using several different styles or only one style; but it’s still about respecting the story

I was so enamored with the idea of being in show business so everything was bright to me. I mean, I didn’t think of it as being tough and things like that.

I mean, we just started, it’s a new thing. We’re doing this for fun and we’re going to see where it goes.