I wasn't a big guy. People thought the big guys would eat me up. But it was the other way around. I loved to fight bigger guys.

I had my Olympic gold medal cut up into eleven pieces. Gave all eleven of my kids a piece. It'll come together again when they put me down.

Ali kept calling me ugly, but I never thought of myself as being any uglier than him, I have 11 babies, somebody thought I was cute.

There's one thing I don't ever think about: losing ... Instead, I think about how I'm going to win, and how I can do it the quickest way.

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

Champions aren't made in the ring, they are merely recognized there. What you cheat on in the early light of morning will show up in the ring under the bright lights.

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."