It's hard to be humble, when you're as great as I am.

A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he'll never crow. I have seen the light and I'm crowing.

I'll tell you how I'd like to be remembered: As a black man who won the heavyweight title - Who has humorous and who never looked down on those who looked up to him - A man who stood for freedom, justice and equality - And I wouldn't even mind if folks forgot how pretty I was.

Outrun the people who quit when they feel discomfort, outrun the people who stop because of despair, outrun the people who are delayed because of prejudice, outrun the people who surrender to failure, and outrun the opponent who loses sight of the goal. Because if you want to win, the will can never retire, the race can never stop, and faith can never weaken.

Sometimes I feel a lot of things but I keep it in. I'm sure we all have this built-in radar of what we predict and when it happens, we feel 'I knew it'.

All of us are so mixed. My great-grandfather was white.

I've been on planes flying through thunder storms when the pilot says, 'ladies and gentlemen, we tried to fly around it but we can't so it's going to be rough'.And when a pilot says it's going to be bad, it's going to be rough. And you say to youself, boy, I could have got the train.