Being a champion opens lots of doors—I'd like to get a real estate license, maybe sell insurance.

I know how hard it is to be a woman, especially a black woman.

Whatever you want, especially when you’re striving to be the best in the world at something, there’ll always be disappointments, and you can’t be emotionally tied to them, cos’ they’ll break your spirit.

I was blessed with speed and a good punch. Everybody thinks I'm the hardest puncher ever. But I just think I was really fast, and my punches got to the target faster. That's what made my knockouts always seem spectacular.

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.

A man that is a friend to everyone is an enemy to himself.

At one point, I thought life was about acquiring things. But as a I get older, life is totally about losing everything.