I have always said I am a five-dimensional fighter.

After about 25 fights you don't always have to keep going to the bathroom before the fight.

The fight will last as long as I allow it to last.

Patience is a part of boxing. After I had missed out on the Olympic gold medal in 1984, a lot of people tried to talk me into turning professional quickly to make money. They told me that the next Olympics in Seoul would be boycotted again, that I was wasting my life, blah blah. But I still had unfinished business. I wanted the gold medal, and I got it in ‘88. Only then was I ready to turn professional.

Mike Tyson fit the American ideal of a boxer. A fighter who jumps out of his corner and hits out fiercely. That’s what he’'ll be remembered for. But good boxing doesn’t work like that. Tyson never won on points. It was clear that he’'d come a cropper some day.

Boxing involves the possibility of defeat, I accepted that very early on. After all, there are only two men and one of them wins.

The danger of a closed mind is that it can also leave good things like love, compassion and reason on its outside.