Mr. Arthur Ashe, he was good. I read some of his books. He knew about everything, but he was real quiet and didn't talk much. I never met him.

I haven't been with a woman in nine months.

I don't do nothin' unless I risk humiliating myself and really embarrassing myself. When I have that hanging over my head, it allows me to rise to the occasion.

You come home, and you party. But after that, you get a hangover. Everything about that is negative.

I had to persevere because this was my life. This championship, this was the stuff I dreamt of all my life, and I wasn't gonna be denied.

That's what people respect, the fact that I wasn't a chump that laid on his back and gave up.

What was most important was the knowledge [aspect] of the fight. I learned this early on and just told myself to "upgrade my mind." That's just what I wanted to do my whole life.