You think the speed of your fingers can match the strength of my fists?

That equals to being a fool, having fame and no fortune. A lot of guys out there have fame doing this and doing that, but they are broke.

I like the hip writers: Fitzgerald, the guy who committed suicide, Hemingway, all those guys. Some of them were alcoholics and drug addicts but they had fun. They were real people. They formed the culture of American literature. Hemingway admired Tolstoy, Tolstoy admired Pushkin, and Mailer admired Hemingway. It all flows down. The greats are all connected. One day I'm gonna write a book myself. The first chapter will be about what a rough deal my momma got. She believed in you guys and your society.

If you can't remember the small things, how are you going to remember the big things? The mind is a real dangerous neighborhood to travel by ourselves.

I have the same malice in my heart as far as the fight game is concerned, but outside the ring, I won't say anything a dignified man won't say.

The one thing I know, everyone respects the true person and everyone's not true with themselves. All of these people who are heroes, these guys who have been lily white and clean all their lives, if they went through what I went through, they would commit suicide. They don't have the heart that I have. I've lived places they can't defecate in.

I'm doing what great artists before me did, like Judy Garland, Sammy Davis, Eddie Cantor. I'm doing what they were doing, not at their level yet, but one day I will be. I'm just happy to be in their company.