I've got it! I've got it! It'll make front-page headlines around the world. You can have me kidnapped, and then a couple of days before the fight I'll show up again

No black man wants a blue-eyed black child, and no white man wants a kinky-haired white child. Nature didn't mean it to be that way.

If you look at the world the same way when you're 50 that you did when you were 20, then you wasted 30 years.

Why are they picking on boxing? It's because the black men are so superior in boxing that they want to stop it. Well, the black man's so hungry he's got to fight.

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.

Nobody has to tell me that this is a serious business. I'm not fighting one man. I'm fighting a lot of men, showing a lot of 'em, here is one man they couldn't defeat, couldn't conquer. My mission is to bring freedom to 30m black people

In a competition of love we'll all share in the victory, no matter who comes first