Champions aren't made in the ring, they are merely recognized there.

Work is the only meanin' I've ever known. Like the man in the song says, I just gotta keep on keepin' on.

I hated Ali. God might not like me talking that way, but its in my heart.

His mouth made him feel like he was gonna win. Not his hands, I had my hand. He had his lips.

I got a burlap sack, put a brick in the middle, and filled it with rags, corncobs, some Spanish moss, and sand. I hung that sack off the branch of an oak tree. I'd wrap my hands with a necktie of my daddy's and punch at it. My mom gave me an hour a day. My brothers and sisters said, "Nah." I said, "You'll see."

The way I fight, it's not me beatin' the man. I make the man whip himself.

Joe Louis is the greatest heavyweight champion of all time. Rocky Marciano is second only to Louis. Where do I rate Ali? Somewhere below me. I beat him, and if I could beat him, no doubt Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano could have beaten him.