To be successful in sports or business, you really have to live the lifestyle. Success is about lifestyle. Just because I was training and working hard, that didn't make me champion or a good fighter. My lifestyle made me a good fighter. In my mind and my daily life, I was the heavy weight champ when I was 15 or 14. I lived the life of the heavyweight champion, and that's who I became. And that is so much more than just training. So, when the time presented itself, that's who I already was. I was ready. I was already there.

For what I get paid to get into the ring, I owe it to my fans to uphold the institution of sportsmanship.

I'm a man. I lived it and I'm not afraid to die but when I die I'm going to paradise and I'm not worried.

The mind is a real dangerous neighborhood to travel by ourselves.

I don't know that person anymore, that guy in '86, '87. I don't know that guy no more. I don't have no affinity for that guy no more. I have no affinity for the guy who said, 'I am the greatest fighter God produced.' I have no affinity for the guy who said he would try to push his [opponent's] nose bone up into his brain. I just don't know that guy. I don't know who he is. I don't know where he came from. I don't have no kind of connection with him no more.

I am the most ruthless, brutal champion ever. There is no one who can match me. I want your heart. I want to eat your children.

If you have a lawyer, sometimes you can get out of trouble. I've gotten into a lot of trouble because I didn't have a lawyer. I've also had some bad lawyers, too. But the good ones, the ones I liked, they became me. They became whatever situation I was involved in. When I felt pain, so did they. When I succeeded, so did they. They became me. They became whatever the situation was that they became involved with.