“Everybody wants to be somebody. The thing you have to do is give them confidence they can. You have to give a kid a dream.”

Read the Bible; it is your roadmap through life.

As a child I was sometimes so hungry that I used to dream that one day I’d get locked in a grocery store.

I get up in the morning looking for an adventure.

The Internal Revenue Service is the real undefeated heavyweight champion.

Choose wise and Godly people to advise you.

That’s my gift. I let that negativity roll off me like water off a duck’s back. If it’s not positive, I didn’t hear it. If you can overcome that, fights are easy.

If you can maintain that integrity in whatever you do, you can’t go wrong.

I didn’t come back for the money. I just got sick of beating people up for free.

You live and learn. Then you die and forget it all.

When I was a kid in Houston, we were so poor we couldn’t afford the last 2 letters, so we called ourselves po’.

In boxing, I had a lot of fear. Fear was good. But, for the first time, in the bout with Muhammad Ali, I didn’t have any fear. I thought, “This is easy. This is what I’ve been waiting for”. No fear at all. No nervousness. And I lost.

If you want it, leave your excuses behind and come and get it.

It embarrasses me to think of all those years I was buying silk suits and alligator shoes that were hurting my feet; cars that I just parked, and the dust would just build up on them.

Many people fail not so much because of their mistakes; they fail because they are afraid to try.

I know from experience that you should never give up on yourself or others, no matter what.

They say I don’t fight guys unless they’re on a respirator. That’s incorrect. They have to be at least 3 days off a respirator.

I love to go down to the schoolyard and watch all the little children jump up and down and run around yelling and screaming. They don’t know I’m only using blanks.

When your child is in trouble, the first thing you do is blame yourself.

We are all a quarter good, a quarter bad, a quarter animal and a quarter child which equals a whole bunch of crazy.

A mother who is really a mother is never free.

I was very sickly as a kid and had a lot of allergies, so martial arts gave me the chance to feel strong.

The first half of our lives are ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.

Is there any man here or any woman, let me say is there any child here, who does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry?

The feather was a thing, when I was a kid, we used to find feathers around the house, and whenever we found them, my mum used to say it was my nan leaving them around for us to find, so that was quite sweet.