At home I am a nice guy: but I don't want the world to know. Humble people, I've found, don't get very far.

People don't realise what they had till it's gone. Like President Kennedy - nobody like him. Like The Beatles, there will never be anything like them. Like my man, Elvis Presley - I was the Elvis of boxing.

We are stone enemies when the bell rings

I'm pretty as a girl.

The crowd did not dream when they laid down their money that they would see a total eclipse of the Sonny!

Emmett Till and I were about the same age. A week after he was murdered... I stood on a corner with a gang of boys, looking at pictures of him in the black newspapers and magazines. In one, he was laughing and happy. In the other, his head was swollen and bashed in, his eyes bulging out of their sockets, and his mouth twisted and broken... I couldn't get Emmett Till out of my mind, until one evening I thought of a way to get back at white people for his death.

My main fight is for freedom and equality.