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'm not a good-looking guy. I don't care if my nose gets mashed.

I never saw my mother happy with me and proud of me for doing something: She only knew me as being a wild kid running the streets, coming home with new clothes that she knew I didn't pay for. I never got a chance to talk to her or know about her. Professionally, it has no effect, but it's crushing emotionally and personally.

If he's not dead, it doesn't count.

It's unnatural to fight somebody who has nothing against you and never did anything to you or to your family, who never stole anything from you. And now you've got to go and try to dismantle this guy.

I earned that the strong will always beat the weak, but the smart will beat the strong. Boxing is a tough guy sport. But in the end, the tough guy gets to clean the streets and be a bodyguard. In the ring, the tough guy is going to get hurt; at the end of the day, he's going to talk funny. Only the smartest win. So, I know it's cliché, but power - real power - comes from knowledge, comes from smarts.

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.