People look at me as some bruiser, but I want to entertain people. I want people to applaud. I want to be the cause of people being happy, their emotions changing, to tell me I did a good performance.

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.

When you have something in life that you want to accomplish greatly, you have to be willing to give up your happiness…I’ve lost all my sensitivity as far as being embarrassed, being shy, you just have to lose that.

Cus was my father but he was more than a father. You can have a father and what does it mean?—it doesn't really mean anything. Cus was my backbone . . . . He did everything for my best interest . . . . We'd spend all our time together, talk about things that, later on, would come back to me. Like about character, and courage. Like the hero and the coward: that the hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs. It's the same thing, fear, but it's what you do with it that matters.

God lets everything happen for a reason. It's all a learning process, and you have to go from one level to another.

I was very dedicated and serious about fighting. I'd read about all the fighters. I found out where they came from, knew about their mothers and their fathers . . . I just read all about their lives, their training.

I didn't know how to be any other way. I felt like one of those barbarian kings just coming to conquer the Roman Empire.