You think it's hard for me when I go in the ring and fight? That's the least of my problems. I think about the five years that I did in prison. I think about the nine years on parole. Nothing - nothing! - can compare to that struggle. I'm telling you, from being an ex-convict with 30 convictions, a degree nowhere to be found and black? I'm done.
Bernard HopkinsYou've got to be willing to look at a guy's face and say I will kill you if I have to. You've got to be willing to look in his face and say that I will stab you, I will hurt you and you can't talk the game, you've got to really act and do the game. Prison is a thing where talking gets you killed. What gets you respect is you do. The guy that you fear is a guy that says nothing.
Bernard HopkinsI'd rather be an adviser. I don't wanna become a trainer because I think with the knowledge and the business sense that I've accomplished through my career and have credibility, why would I reduce myself down to being in a gym with a bunch of training which is not a bad thing to give advice, but I can do that with a suit and tie on and also be there when the cheques are written. I don't wanna be there when the cheques are handed down from 3 or 4 people's hands and then it hits mine as a trainer because 9/10 times, deductions have come out of that.
Bernard HopkinsIt takes a very very strong individual not to be corrupt in any of those things as time moves on. Myself and other people who went that road and experienced that world, some got a second birth of life and some is in the dirt.
Bernard Hopkins