I'm so opposite of my profession. No one - particularly my mother and father - ever thought I was going to be a boxer because I always felt that football and baseball were too dangerous. I was just such a quiet kid.

You have to know you can win. You have to think you can win. You have to feel you can win.

A fighter never knows when it's the last bell. He doesn't want to face that.

Boxing was the only career where I wouldn't have to start out at the bottom. I had a good resume.

To be the best, you need to spend hours and hours and hours running, hitting the speed bag, lifting weights and focusing on training.

Before the start of the '76 Olympics, I'd had 160 amateur fights. I won 155 and lost five

To be honest, I don't know. I started one [book] back in 1982 or '83 when I first retired. But I was only 25 or 26 and not ready to write my memoirs.