I'm not a star. I don't feel I'm so great. So how can I make you feel great just because you've got my signature on a piece of paper?

For my job, I act tough. I'm not tough. On the street, I don't go out beating people up and this and that. I used to joke one time on the television station that I never... Everybody that I beat up deserved it. I never beat up an innocent person.

I take a lot of pride in the work I do, because people pay to see me. They've go to get babysitters, park their car, get popcorn and candy. I've got to be conscious of that.

Before Rocky III, I was minding my own business, there was a Tough Man contest. I won that contest two years in a row and I didn't win because I was the toughest, the roughest or the baddest. I won when I was training for the contest, I told my pastor "They're having a contest and when I win the contest I'm a give you the money so you can buy food and clothes for the less fortunate people in the community." That was what Mr. T was about, that was back in 1979. I didn't have a car then but that's what I'm about.

Calvin Klein and Gloria Vanderbilt don't wear clothes with your name on it, so why should you wear their name?

My mother told me, 'Son, nobody else but God knows.' And that's what I'm about - reaching out to the people, crying with them, giving them hope. Visiting the hospital, visiting the kids with cancer, visiting the adults, and stuff like that. That's what I do.

I didn't come to Hollywood. Hollywood came to me. A lot of people wish they could say the things I say. Everyone out here is so phony, it's sickening.