“I need eight weeks, train hard, last one week make weight, and go to the war. Because when I go to the war, I have to know I am ready or no.”

These guys talk when I’m injured, but when I’m healthy, where are these guys? Tony or Conor, it doesn’t matter. Or maybe they’re going to fight it each other? It doesn’t matter.

I’m from Dagestan, I’m born in Dagestan, and Dagestan is a different level for people living a tough life, people living in the mountains.

I want to stay humble, but I have to talk because the other guys talk too much, and I understand the crazy power the UFC PR machine has.

I don’t know about politics so much. I’m a professional athlete.

Next fight? If the UFC tell me, ‘What do you want?’ I’m going to say Tony Ferguson.

My best background is, like, smash opponents. I all the time go forward. I all the time try to take down somebody. Make him give up. This is my style, you know. This is what I do all my life.

When I fought with Michael Johnson, when I took his arm for the kimura, I can break it, but I go very slowly, be careful, because I don’t want to give him injury.

I never have a problem with the weight cut. My number one enemy is injuries because I train so hard.

I train, eat, sleep, and repeat.

My style is not like anyone’s. I’m not a typical wrestler.

They’re all fake belts. To be honest, I think real belt is Tony Ferguson’s.

I think about only me.

You have to punch hard for knockouts, and to beat me, you have to knock me out.

Of course I am tough, but I am smart, too. I’m more smart than tough. People watching my record and say that this guy is tough. This is not about tough; this is about mind. You think when you fight. This is about everything.

Where is Conor? He wanna fight with a bus. I want to fight with a real gangster. Iaquinta, thank you so much.

I don’t fight for the money. I fight for my legacy. I fight for history. I fight for my people.

I don’t really know what the dream role would be. That’s a hard question to answer. You never really know, until you’re immersed into something, how passionate you feel for it and how it unravels.

For what is Mysticism? It is not the attempt to draw near to God, not by rites or ceremonies, but by inward disposition? Is it not merely a hard word for ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is within’? Heaven is neither a place nor a time.

The thing about travelling is that you work hard and play hard, but you can do all those things without your parents knowing.

You know it’s hard for me to, like, act the way I’ve been acting. And, like, being, like, nice to everyone. And I think I deserve to be acknowledged for that.

With a television series, there’s a hard deadline, and so you have to write even when you’re not writing well.

I’ve never met anyone who has said, “My goal is to make America mediocre.” That’s a kind of hard-right conservative fallacy.

It’s been a straight strip, I must tell you, I’ve enjoyed it all the way. If I’m saying things to make it sound like it’s hard, hard work, it’s not. It’s beautiful work. It’s fun work. It’s everything you’d ever want to do.

I must tell you, I haven’t done the drug problem that is faced by cops and people on the border. It’s a hard show to do, but I think it’s going to say a lot about drugs and the problems related to them. I just hope people can watch it, it’s a pretty strong show.