If there's magic in boxing, it's the magic of fighting battles beyond endurance, beyond cracked ribs, ruptured kidneys and detached retinas. It's the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you.

PAUL HAGGIS, Million Dollar Baby

Everyone in boxing probably makes out well except for the fighter. He's the only one that's on Skid Row most of the time; he's the only one that everybody just leaves when he loses his mind. He sometimes goes insane, he sometimes goes on the bottle, because it's an intensive pressure sport that allows people to just lose it.

MIKE TYSON, Boxing Monthly, Aug. 2000

Boxing is the magic of men in combat, the magic of will, and skill, and pain, and the risking of everything so you can respect yourself for the rest of your life.

F.X. TOOLE, introduction, Million Dollary Baby

To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other.

JACK HANDEY, Deep Thoughts

Boxing is smoky halls and kidneys battered until they bleed.

ROGER KAHN, "Intellectuals and Ball Players," American Scholar, Nov. 3, 1957

Unlike any other sport, the objective in boxing is chillingly simple: One man purposefully endeavors to inflict bodily harm on another man.

HOWARD COSELL, I Never Played the Game

When I fight someone, I want to break his will. I want to take his manhood. I want to rip out his heart and show it to him.

MIKE TYSON, Sports Illustrated, Mar. 1988

I love boxing and it did a lot for me. But sometimes it made me think how savage human beings could be to each other. That wasn't the kind of boxer I wanted to be. My strategy was to be as scientific as I could when I fought. I didn't want to be seriously hurt, and I didn't want to do that to anybody else either.

MUHAMMAD ALI, The Soul of a Butterfly

Boxing is about being hit rather more than it is about hitting, just as it is about feeling pain, if not devastating psychological paralysis, more than it is about winning.

JOYCE CAROL OATES, On Boxing

Boxing is just show business with blood.

FRANK BRUNO, London Guardian, Nov. 19, 1991

Boxing was on the one hand barbaric, unconscionable, out of place in modern society. But then, so are war, racism, poverty, and pro football. Men died boxing, yet there was nobility in defending oneself.

RALPH WILEY, Serenity: A Boxing Memoir

When you saw me in the boxing ring fighting, it wasn't just so I could beat my opponent. My fighting had a purpose. I had to be successful in order to get people to listen to the things I had to say.

MUHAMMAD ALI, The Soul of a Butterfly

Boxing is a sport at its most brutal, most primitive, and most natural. Two men defending their honor and courage, in a ring surrounded by observers, whose love for the sport is essentially spiritual. Boxing is the last refuge of the modern day warror.

THOMAS DONELSON, Viewing Boxing from Ringside

Boxing is drama on its grandest scale.

HOWARD COSELL, I Never Played the Game

"From now on, match me with one guy at a time."
- Harry Greb to his manager after a bout with Mike Gibbons
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Mike: "Let's dance around for the first couple of rounds then in the 3rd round I'll let you knock me down."
Tom: "Sounds good Mike. When do you get to knock me down?"
Mike: "Anytime I feel like it."
-Mike and Tom Gibbons at a boxing exhibition. Story from members of the Gibbons family.
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George Barton, veteran manager, referee, and newspaperman said, "No question about it, Mike Gibbons was just the greatest boxer who ever lived. He might have been a great wrestler, or great in any sport, but boxing was his game. I never expect to see another as good. One had to see Mike in action to fully appreciate his skill and understand why he was called the Phantom. He was the personification of perfection in boxing and punching technique, graceful motion, and ring generalship."
-From Blair, George D. Mike Gibbons: The St. Paul Phantom
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"I think Mike Gibbons was probably the greatest boxer that ever put a glove on. They called him The Wizard, The Phantom of the ring and he was that. I boxed with Mike about ten years and I never really hit him a hard punch during the time. Repeating again, Mike was one of the great boxers of the age."
-Tom Gibbons in a radio interview in 1949.
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"For many years I was known merely as Mike's younger brother. It wasn't until Mike retired temporarily along about 1919 that I really became known as Tommy Gibbons, heavyweight contender. For a long time we both were middleweights and Mike was regarded as the uncrowned king of the division.
However, that was all right with me. I don't think anybody ever lived who knew more about boxing than Mike did, or still does, for that matter. He began where the average boxer left off. He was to boxing what Einstein was to science. Even after I learned what the game was all about and thought I knew most of the answers, Mike used to amaze me with some new trick he'd developed."
-Tom Gibbons in the 1943 Fight Stories article "How I Fought The Champs"
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"My brother, Mike."
-Tom Gibbons when asked who was the best boxer that he ever fought.
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"Gene Tunney called Gibbons 'the perfect boxer.' Gene said he learned more about the technique of boxing and punching from watching Mike training in New York gymnasiums and in actual fights in Gotham than he learned from any other individual associated with the fistic sport.
Moreover, Tunney has told me it was Gibbons' clean-cut victory over Jack Dillon, the mighty light heavyweight from Indianapolis, that inspired in him the belief he could whip Jack Dempsey."
-Barton, George A. My Lifetime In Sports. Minneapolis: The Olympic Press, 1957
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"For the first and only time, I was more worried about getting hurt by the crowd than by the guy I was fighting. I got a pretty good blast when introduced. The crowd was hollering and raising hell. I looked around for my bodyguard, a colorful New York character named Wild Bill Lyons, who packed two pearl-handled pistols and used to talk a lot about his days in the West. Wild Bill was under the ring, hiding."
- Jack Dempsey about being introduced to the crowd at the Dempsey/Gibbons fight in Shelby, Montana July 4, 1923
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"Nailing him was like trying to thread a needle in a high wind."
- Jack Dempsey about Tommy Gibbons bout in 1923
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"Dempsey hits people only slightly harder than a bus…"
- 'Twas the Fight before Christmas by Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly
Posted on CNNSI.COM: Tuesday December 21, 1999 05:34 PM Issue date: December 27, 1999
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"Dempsey could beat anybody he could hit. The only reason that he couldn't do anything with fellows like Tunney or Greb or myself was he couldn't hit us."
- Tom Gibbons in a radio interview in 1949
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"I've seen Dempsey fight and I was impressed with his lack of knowledge."
- Gene Tunney before out pointing Jack Dempsey in 1926
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"Honey, I just forgot to duck."
- Jack Dempsey to his wife Estelle after losing his World Heavyweight title in 1926
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"No matter what nationality or color is champion, we Irish like to say that we have a heavyweight champion, Gene Tunney retired, who can come back and take the title at any time."
-Tom Gibbons in a 1949 Radio Interview
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"When I was growing up, there was always somebody who wanted to pick a fight with me. I'd say, I'm not a famous boxer, my father is. If you want to fight somebody, go fight my Dad."
-Richard Gibbons about growing up the son of Tom Gibbons.
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"Dempsey himself said you only spend so much time in the spotlight before they change the bulb. He had a very clever way with words."
- Roger Kahn author of A Flame of Pure Fire : Jack Dempsey and the Roaring 20's
-In a review by Caple, Jim. St. Paul Pioneer Press Staff Writer. Published: Monday, November 1, 1999
__________________________________________________ _____________________

Virginia Gibbons Schweitz, a secretary in the jail in 1935 for Sheriff Tommy Gibbons, her uncle, recalled the excitement as the nation's public enemies were brought to jail in handcuffs; "It was a romantic time", said Schweitz the gangsters "were like celebrities Every time they came down the jail steps to go to federal court ... shackled with FBI agents, oh, God newsmen all over". -- Virginia Gibbons Schweitz interveiw with author 12/30/1992.
-From the book John Dillinger Slept Here -- "A Crooks Tour of Crime & Corruption in Saint Paul" -- 1920 - 1936. By Paul Maccabee -- MHS Press
__________________________________________________ _____________________

Doc Barker volunteered to teach Ramsey County Sheriff Tommy Gibbons how to load and fire the new (Thompson) machine guns supplied to guard the Baker - Karpis gang, but the Sheriff declined the offer. Dispatch Pioneer Press -- 1935.
-From the book John Dillinger Slept Here -- "A Crooks Tour of Crime & Corruption in Saint Paul" -- 1920 - 1936. By Paul Maccabee -- MHS Press
__________________________________________________ _____________________

"I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my bedroom and was in bed before the room was dark."
-Muhammad Ali
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Frank Bruno: "I was in a no-win situation, so I'm glad that I won rather than lost. "

Marlon Starling: "I'll fight Lloyd Honeyghan for nothing if the price is right"

Dennis Pennis: Have you ever thought of writing your autobiography?
Chris Eubank: On what?

Don King, on boxing's rating system: "When we started, it was based on lies. It's changing now. There are no secrets in the business. You've got to come with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's becoming very confusing."

Buddy McGirt, when he was asked by Gil Clancy who would win the up-coming fight between Maurice Blocker and Glenwood Brown he replied: "The black guy."

Harry Carpenter: "This boxer is doing what is expected of him, bleeding from his nose."

Jack Handy: "To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography and the dancers hit each other."

Brian London, answering if he would fight Ali again: "Sure, as long as he ties a 56 lb. weight to each leg."

Willie Pep: "I've got it made. I've got a wife and a TV set -- and they're both working."

George Foreman: "Bob, I can't chase these guys anymore."
Bob Arum: "George, I cant put it in the contracts that they can't run."

Randall "Tex" Cobb: "If you screw things up in tennis, it's 15-love. If you screw up in boxing, it's your ass."

Bob Hope: "I was called "Rembrandt" Hope in my boxing days, because I spent so much time on the canvas."

Bob Arum, after his fighter, Iran Barkley, won a fight: "If you think Barkley was mad before the fight, wait until he sees how many people are taking part of his purse."

Marlene Bugner, wife of Joe Bugner: "I don't know what impressive is, but Joe was impressive tonight."

Jim Watt, former WBC lightweight champion, when asked about his "white complexion" by a reporter said: "I'm like a bottle of milk with gloves."

Tony Galento, when asked about Shakespeare: "I ain't never heard of him. I suppose he's one of them foreign heavyweights. They're all lousy. Sure as hell I'll moider de bum."

Tony Sibson, on being beaten in a match: "I figured I'd find him sooner or later but I never did. I asked myself "Where did he go?" I knew he was there because he kept hitting me."

Mike Tyson, on fighting Lennox Lewis: "My main objective is to be professional, but to kill him."

Harry Carpenter: "He looks up through blood smeared lips."

Joe Frazier, talking to Ken Norton at a social gathering.
Frazier: "Hey man, what you been doing?";
Norton: "My wife just had a baby.";
Frazier: "Congratulations! Whose baby is it?"

Willie Pep, talking to an old opponent years after each retired. "Do you recognize me?" the old opponent asked. Willie looked hard and considered before finally replying "Lie down so I can recognize you."

Mark Kaylor: "I'm concentrating so much I don't know what I'm doing half the time."

Willie Pastrano, when asked by the ring doctor if he knew where he was: "You're damn right I do. I'm in Madison Square Garden getting the sh*t knocked out of me."

Henry Cooper, replying to boxing abolitionist, Baroness Edith Summerskill, about the brutalities of his sport.
Baroness: "Mr. Cooper, have you looked in the mirror lately and seen the state of your nose?"
Cooper: "Well madam, have you looked in the mirror and seen the state of your nose? Boxing is my excuse. What's yours?"

Eddie Shaw, referring to Herol "Bomber" Graham : "He has turned defensive boxing into a poetic art. Trouble is, nobody ever knocked anybody out with a poem."

Mike Tyson, on writer Wallace Matthews: "[He] called me a 'rapist' and a 'recluse'. I'm not a recluse."

Harry Carpenter: "It's not one of Bruno's fastest wins... but it's one of them."

Mark Kaylor: "I've only ever seen Errol Christie fight once before and that was the best I've ever seen him fight."

Lou Duva, Veteran boxing trainer, on the spartan training regimen of heavyweight Andrew Golota: "He's a guy who gets up at six o'clock in the morning regardless of what time it is."

Randall "Tex" Cobb: "When I got up I stuck to my plan -- stumbling forward and getting hit in the face."

Blackie Sherrod, talking about a heavyweight contender: "He has everything a boxer needs except speed, stamina, a punch, and ability to take punishment. In other words, he owns a pair of shorts."

Max Barr, on Joe Louis: "He hit me 18 times while I was in the act of falling."

Harry Kabakoff, on Chango Cruz: "The bum was up and down so many times I thought he was an Otis elevator."

Terry Lawless: "He's standing there making a sitting target of himself."

Mike Tyson, to the Nevada State Athletic Commission: "I'm not Mother Teresa. But I'm also not Charles Manson."

Nick Wilshire: "I can only see it going one way, that's my way. How it's actually going to go I can't really say."

Tommy Farr: "Every time I hear the name Joe Louis my nose starts to bleed."

Dan Duva, on Mike Tyson hooking up again with promoter Don King: " Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton."

Alan Massengale, after Don Zimmer got knocked down by Pedro Martinez in the playoffs and Evander Holyfield lost to James Toney.: "I felt sorry for Zimmer this weekend. Next time, if he wants to rumble, maybe he should pick on someone a little closer to his age. Evander Holyfield might be available."

Harry Carpenter: "Marvelous oriental pace he's got, just like a Buddhist statue."

Tex Cobb, responding to a reporter who said Cobb was a fat, cocaine snorting , drunk. Cobb replied: "I'm not fat.

Dan Duva, referring to whether or not he thought Mike Tyson would learn anything in prison: "He went to prison for three years, not Princeton."

Max Baer, when asked for his definition of fear: "Standing across the ring from Joe Louis and knowing he wants to go home early."

George Foreman: "The referee is the most important man in the ring besides the two fighters."

(paraphrasing the 11th round of Barrera Hamed by the incomperable Jim Lampley)
"Hamed said that if he loses this fight it's because it has been written by Allah. By now it's clear that Allah knows how to spell Marco Antonio Barrera."

(Larry Merchant before the first Junior Jones fight)
"Barrera might be the type of fighter that only comes around once every ten years that Mexico seems to produce once every decade."

"when the legs go like spagetti im all over um like the sauce" ON KNOCKING OUT DANA ROSENBAT
"It takes balls to conquer the world."

Vinny Pazienza

My favorite Tyson Quote---( I was there for this one ) When asked about how his training was coming---I am training confucisly...And it's only going to get better....

Vinnie Pazienza--I timed my coffee wrong,,,If I had it when I was supposed to It would have ended in a knockout---When using an excuse for roy jones loss

Randall "Tex" Cobb: "When I got up I stuck to my plan -- stumbling forward and getting hit in the face."


Willie Pastrano, when asked by the ring doctor if he knew where he was: "You're damn right I do. I'm in Madison Square Garden getting the S*** knocked out of me."

he Tyson quote from" Pride of Boston"

"I paid a worker at New York's zoo to re-open it just for me and Robin. When we got to the gorilla cage there was 1 big silverback gorilla there just bullying all the other gorillas. They were so powerful but their eyes were like an innocent infant. I offered the attendant $10,000 to open the cage and let smash that silverback's snotbox! He declined."

Would have loved to see that S*** ! Roll Eyes There never would have been a second career , and everyone would have remembered Mike Tyson as a great disciplined fighter that would have never been defeated. Wink

"I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me because I had a good life before and I'm having a good life now. It would be bad if I had a disease that was contagious, then i couldn't play with children and hug people all over the world. But my problem with speaking bothers other people more than it bothers me. It doesn't stop me from doing what I want to do, and being what I want to be. Sometimes I think that too many people had put me on a pedestal before, and made me into an idol - and that's against Islam: there are no idols in Islam. So maybe this problem I have is God's way of reminding me, and everyone else, about what's important. I accept it as God's will. And I know that God never gives anyone a burden that's too heavy for them to carry" MUHAMMAD ALI

"Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams. They have different names but all contain water. Religions have different names, but all contain truth" MUHAMMAD ALI

"All them student protesters are just a bunch of communists. They could all get run over by atruck for all I care. matter of fosct, it might do them some good" SONNY LISTON

"If anyone even dreams he can beat me, he's better wake up and apologise. Frazier's got two chances, slim and none. I'm so fast I'll hit him before God gets the news - he'll see so many gloves, he'll think he's fighting an octopus" MUHAMMAD ALI

"Boxing is the sport to which all other sports aspire" GEORGE FOREMAN

"I feel sorry for Sonny. You people put too much load on him. You built him up too big and now he has such a long way to fall" MUHAMMAD ALI

"I would have knocked him out in the third round because every time I hit him he was making these sounds like a woman screaming. I wanted to knock him out slowly so he could remember the stuff he said before the fight. I wanted to hit him as many times as I could before he fell over. When he did go down, I was hoping he's get up, so I could hit him more" MIKE TYSON, on Tyrell Biggs

"I admit he used to get to me. It got worse and worse and when he said something to me I spat in his face. I didn't want t0 punch him because i might have hurt my hand and nobody was paying me, but I had to do something" LLOYD HONEYGHAN

"No running, no hiding from no one. You stand there and you fight until the blood runs in your shoes. But don't you run" BEAU JACK

"No matter what anyone says, no matter the excuse or the explanation, whatever a person does in the end is what he intended to do all along" CUS D'AMATO

"He's gonna need an industrial strength toothpick to pick the leather out of his teeth. I'm gonna hit this man so hard he's gonna grow an afro. The only way he's gonna get close to me is if he wets both his lips - 'cos they're as big as a plunger - and sticks them onto my chest" MICHAEL OLAJIDE, on Iran Barkley


“[He] called me a ‘rapist’ and a ‘recluse.’ I’m not a recluse.”

On Lennox Lewis

"Lennox Lewis, I'm coming for you man. My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious. I want your heart. I want to eat his children. Praise be to Allah!"

"My main objective is to be professional but to kill him."

"I want to rip out his heart and feed it to him [Lennox Lewis]. I want to kill people. I want to rip their stomachs out and eat their children."

On Evander Holyfield

"You got nothing coming, man. I'm going to enjoy this fight."

After biting Holyfield he said, "This is my career. I have children to raise. I have to retaliate. He butted me. Look at me. My kids will be scared of me."

"I felt Holyfield was using his head illegally. I told the referee I wasn't getting any help, so I went back to the streets. I cannot defend it, but it happened."

On Razor Ruddock

"You're sweet. I'm going to make sure you kiss me good with those big lips. I'm gonna make you my girlfriend."

On Tyrell Biggs

Tyson on Tyrell Biggs' complaining to him about low blows "Low blows? Low blows? Huh! Motherf**ker you're fittin' to die!"

"He was screaming like my wife."

"I could have knocked him out in the third round but I wanted to do it slowly, so he would remember this night for a long time."

On His Wife

"I paid a worker at New York's zoo to re-open it just for me and Robin. When we got to the gorilla cage there was 1 big silverback gorilla there just bullying all the other gorillas. They were so powerful but their eyes were like an innocent infant. I offered the attendant $10,000 to open the cage and let smash that silverback's snotbox! He declined."

"Anyone with a grain of sense would know that if I punched my wife I would rip her head off. It's all lies. I have never laid a finger on her."

On His Childhood

"One morning I woke up and found my favorite pigeon, Julius, had died I was devastated and was gonna use his crate as my stickball bat to honor him. I left the crate on my stoop and went in to get something and I returned to see the sanitation man put the crate into the crusher. I rushed him and caught him flush on the temple with a titanic right hand he was out cold, convulsing on the floor like a infantile retard."

On Fans

To a question on whether he feels support from the common fan: "I don't feel love from them because there's no love. They don't know me as an individual; they know me for what I actually do. Because they pay to see me smash anybody. If they're white they pay, [it's] because the only thing they have respect for is my ability as an athlete. But if I was in court and I had to use them to testify against me on my character, they wouldn't testify positively against me and they would think I'm a cad..."

"There are nine million people who see me in the ring and hate my guts. Most of them are white. That's okay. Just spell my name right."

"I think the average person thinks I'm a f**king nut and I deserve whatever happens to me. That's what I believe."

"When you see me smash somebody's skull, you enjoy it."

On His Time in Prison

"You have to understand, Frank Bruno would not have been champion if I had not been in prison. Oliver McCall would not have been champion if I had not been in prison. A lot of these guys would not have been champion. Michael Moorer would not have been champion. Those guys would not have been champion if I had been around. They would have had no legacy. None of those guys would have had a legacy."

"I would have been in shape. I would have been active. Holyfield, those guys wouldn't have been champion when I was around, but I went away for four or five years inactive and that made them competitive for a time."

"But you really have to look at the science of the situation. You guys come here to talk and report but you don't actually look at the facts of what this business is all about. The best thing that happened to those guys and they should stand on their mother's shoulders and kiss my a** because I went to prison or they would not be existing right now. They'd be a flash in the pan and would have made some money and opened up a restaurant or bar somewhere where they live at."

On Boxing

"I try to catch him right on the tip of the nose, because I try to push the bone into the brain."

"Everyone in boxing probably makes out well except for the fighter. He's the only one that's on Skid Row most of the time; he's the only one that everybody just leaves when he loses his mind. He sometimes goes insane, he sometimes goes on the bottle, because it's a highly intensive pressure sport that allows people to just lose it [their self-control]."

"How dare these boxers challenge me with their primitive skills? It makes me angry. They're just as good as dead."

"My power is discombobulatingly devastating I could feel is muscle tissues collapse under my force. It's ludicrous these mortals even attempt to enter my realm."

Tyson: "It's interesting that you put me in the league with those illustrious fighters [Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Jack Johnson], but I've proved since my career I've surpassed them as far my popularity. I'm the biggest fighter in the history of the sport. If you don't believe it, check the cash register."

"Without discipline, no matter how good you are, you are nothing! One day, and I might not be around; you're going to meet a tough guy who takes your best shot. He'll keep coming because he's tough. Don't get discouraged. That's when the discipline comes in."

"I just want them to keep bringing guys on and I'm going to strip them of their health. I bring pain, a lot of pain."

On His Family

"No one gives a f**k about me. No one cares if my children starve, if they're on welfare. I have to support my children. I need more money."

Mike, on his mother who died in 1982: "I never saw my mother happy with me and proud of me for doing something: She only knew me as being a wild kid running the streets, coming home with new clothes that she knew I didn't pay for. I never got a chance to talk to her or know about her. Professionally, it has no effect, but it's crushing emotionally and personally."

On the Media

“I want to throw down your kid and stomp on his testicles, and then you will know what it is like to experience waking up everyday as me. And only then will you feel my pain.”

[To a female reporter] "It's no doubt I am going to win this fight and I feel confident about winning this fight. I normally don't do interviews with women unless I fornicate with them. So you shouldn't talk anymore... Unless you want to, you know."

"People [are] going to say what they say. It has to be for a reason. It's just for a reason. I know sometimes I say things; I offend people. I ask this lady a lewd question because I'm in a lot of pain too. I have some pain I'm gonna have for the rest of my life. And Lewis, I'm trying to give some of that pain to ya'll."

"You gentlemen have no idea what it's like to be myself, no idea what it's like. I'm not interested in being humiliated anymore."

"Sometimes you guys have no pride, so no matter what I say, you guys ... it doesn't affect you because you don't care about nothing but money. So every now and then I kick your f**king a** and stomp on you and put some kind of pain and inflict some of the pain on you because you deserve to feel the pain that I feel."

"If I take this camera and put it in your face for 20 years, I don't know what you might be. You might be a homosexual if I put that camera on you since you were 13 years old. I've been on that camera since I was 13 years old."

On Religion

"All praise is to Allah, I'll fight any man, any animal, if Jesus were here I'd fight him too."

"I feel like sometimes that I was born, that I'm not meant for this society because everyone here is a f**king hypocrite. Everybody says they believe in God but they don't do God's work. Everybody counteracts what God is really about. If Jesus was here, do you think Jesus would show me any love? Do you think Jesus would love me? I'm a Muslim, but do you think Jesus would love me ... I think Jesus would have a drink with me and discuss ... why you acting like that? Now, he would be cool. He would talk to me. No Christian ever did that and said in the name of Jesus even ... They'd throw me in jail and write bad articles about me and then go to church on Sunday and say Jesus is a wonderful man and he's coming back to save us. But they don't understand that when he comes back, that these crazy greedy capitalistic men are gonna kill him again."

Stacey McKinley: "He sees a guy beggin' in the street and he gives him a hundred dollars. I'll say, 'Man, y'know the guy's just gonna spend it on crack!' But he says, 'I leave it to Allah to judge him.'"

"I'm a man. I lived it and I'm not afraid to die but when I die I'm going to paradise and I'm not worried."

On Himself

"The one thing I know, everyone respects the true person and everyone's not true with themselves. All of these people who are heroes, these guys who have been lily white and clean all their lives, if they went through what I went through, they would commit suicide. They don't have the heart that I have. I've lived places they can't defecate in."

"I'm not Mother Teresa. But I'm also not Charles Manson!"

"Fear is your best friend or your worst enemy. It's like fire. If you can control it, it can cook for you; it can heat your house. If you can't control it, it will burn everything around you and destroy you. If you can control your fear, it makes you more alert, like a deer coming across the lawn."

"I'm just like you. I enjoy the forbidden fruits in life, too. I think it's un-American not to go out with a woman, not to be with a beautiful woman, not to get my dick sucked ... It's just what I said before, everybody in this country is a big f**king liar. [The media] tells people ... that this person did this and this person did that and then we find out that were just human and we find out that Michael Jordan cheats on his wife just like everybody else and that we all cheat on our f**king wife in one way or another either emotionally, physically or sexually or one way."

"There's no one perfect. We're always gonna do that. Jimmy Swaggart is lascivious, Mike Tyson is lascivious -- but we're not criminally, at least I'm not, criminally lascivious. You know what I mean. I may like to fornicate more than other people -- it's just who I am. I sacrifice so much of my life, can I at least get laid? I mean, I been robbed of my most of my money, can I at least get [oral sex] without the people wanting to harass me and wanting to throw me in jail?"

"At times, I come across as crude or crass, that irritates you when I come across like a Neanderthal or a babbling idiot at times. But I like to be that person. I like to show you all that person because that's who you come to see."

"I'm the most irresponsible person in the world. The reason I'm like that is because, at 21, you all gave me $50 or $100 million, and I didn't know what to do. I'm from the ghetto. I don't know how to act. One day I'm in a dope house robbing somebody. The next thing I know, 'You're the heavyweight champion of the world.' ... Who am I? What am I? I don't even know who I am. I'm just a dumb child. I'm being abused. I'm being robbed by lawyers. I think I have more money than I do. I'm just a dumb pugnacious fool. I'm just a fool who thinks I'm someone. And you tell me I should be responsible?"

On His Mental Health

"I don't know if I'm mentally sick, but I have... episodes sometimes. I'm a depressant kind of dude. I have episodes, and I'm human. But no one cares about my health as a human because sometimes I'm in my episodes when I'm at work."

"Well, [contemplating suicide] goes through everyone's mind, I'm sure. And if it doesn't I really must be crazy. Everyone thinks about that because sometimes, you know what I mean, it's just tough being a ni**er and it's tough being a bad ni**er."

I don't react to a tragic happening any more. I took so many bad things as a kid and some people think I don't care about anything. It's just too hard for me to get emotional. I can't cry no more."

"I'm on the Zoloft [an antidepressant] to keep from killing y'all."

On America

"I'm just a dark guy from a den of iniquity. A dark shadowy figure from the bowels of iniquity. I wish I could be Mike who gets an endorsement deal. But you can't make a lie and a truth go together. This country wasn't built on moral fiber. This country was built on rape, slavery, murder, degradation and affiliation with crime."

Miscellaneous Quotes

"I really dig Hannibal. Hannibal had real guts. He rode elephants into Cartilage."

"I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian."

"I like the British bikes. I like British people. They're real mellow."

"I can sell out Madison Square Garden masturbating."

"I have some pain I'm gonna have for the rest of my life. So every now and then I kick your f**king a**."

"I just want to conquer people and their souls."

Don King, on boxing's rating system: "When we started, it was based on lies. It's changing now. There are no secrets in the business. You've got to come with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's becoming very confusing."

Bob Arum, replying to a reporters question. "Yesterday I was lying, today I am telling the truth."

Muhammad Ali: "If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you."

Buddy McGirt, when he was asked by Gil Clancy who would win the up-coming fight between Maurice Blocker and Glenwood Brown he replied: "The black guy."

Harry Carpenter: "This boxer is doing what is expected of him, bleeding from his nose."

Jack Handy, Deep Thoughts: "To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography and the dancers hit each other."

Muhammed Ali, after failing an Army intelligence test, "I said I was the greatest, not the smartest."

Brian London, answering if he would fight Ali again: "Sure, as long as he ties a 56 lb. weight to each leg."

Willie Pep: "I've got it made. I've got a wife and a TV set -- and they're both working."

Here is a conversation between George Foreman and Bob Arum in 1995, Foreman: "Bob, I can't chase these guys anymore." Arum's reply: "George, I cant put it in the contracts that they can't run."

Randall "Tex" Cobb: "If you screw things up in tennis, it's 15-love. If you screw up in boxing, it's your a**."

Bob Hope: "I was called "Rembrandt" Hope in my boxing days, because I spent so much time on the canvas."

Bob Arum, after his fighter, Iran Barkley, beat Darrian Van Horn: "If you think Barkley was mad before the fight, wait until he sees how many people are taking part of his purse."

Marlene Bugner, wife of Joe Bugner: "I don't know what impressive is, but Joe was impressive tonight."

Muhammad Ali, on heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston: "He's too ugly to be the champ!"

Jim Watt, former WBC lightweight champion, when asked about his "white complexion" by a reporter said: "I'm like a bottle of milk with gloves."

Tony Galento, when asked about Shakespeare: "I ain't never heard of him. I suppose he's one of them foreign heavyweights. They're all lousy. Sure as hell I'll moider de bum."

Tony Sibson, on being beaten in a match: "I figured I'd find him sooner or later but I never did. I asked myself "Where did he go?" I knew he was there because he kept hitting me."

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

Mike Tyson, on fighting Lennox Lewis: "My main objective is to be professional, but to kill him."

Harry Carpenter: "He looks up through blood smeared lips."

Joe Frazier, talking to Ken Norton at a social gathering. Frazier: "Hey man, what you been doing?"; Norton: "My wife just had a baby."; Frazier: "Congratulations! Whose baby is it?"

Muhammad Ali, on an upcoming fight with Floyd Patterson: "I'll beat him so bad he'll need a shoehorn to put his hat on."

Willie Pep, talking to an old opponent years after each retired. "Do you recognize me?" the old opponent asked. Willie looked hard and considered before finally replying "Lie down so I can recognize you."

Mark Kaylor: "I'm concentrating so much I don't know what I'm doing half the time."

Muhammad Ali: "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."

Willie Pastrano, when asked by the ring doctor if he knew where he was: "You're damn right I do. I'm in Madison Square Garden getting the S*** knocked out of me."

Henry Cooper, replying to boxing abolitionist, Baroness Edith Summerskill, about the brutalities of his sport. Baroness: "Mr. Cooper, have you looked in the mirror lately and seen the state of your nose?"
Cooper: "Well madam, have you looked in the mirror and seen the state of your nose? Boxing is my excuse. What's yours?"

Muhammad Ali: "It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up."

Eddie Shaw, referring to Herol "Bomber" Graham : "He has turned defensive boxing into a poetic art. Trouble is, nobody ever knocked anybody out with a poem."

Alan Minter: "Sure there have been injuries and deaths in boxing - but none of them serious."

Mike Tyson, on writer Wallace Matthews: "[He] called me a 'rapist' and a 'recluse'. I'm not a recluse."

Harry Carpenter: "It's not one of Bruno's fastest wins... but it's one of them."

Mark Kaylor: "I've only ever seen Errol Christie fight once before and that was the best I've ever seen him fight."

Lou Duva, Veteran boxing trainer, on the spartan training regimen of heavyweight Andrew Golota: "He's a guy who gets up at six o'clock in the morning regardless of what time it is."

Randall "Tex" Cobb: "When I got up I stuck to my plan -- stumbling forward and getting hit in the face."

Muhammad Ali: "I ain't got no quarrel with those Viet Cong."

Blackie Sherrod, talking about a heavyweight contender: "He has everything a boxer needs except speed, stamina, a punch, and ability to take punishment. In other words, he owns a pair of shorts."

Max Barr, on Joe Louis: "He hit me 18 times while I was in the act of falling."

Harry Kabakoff, on Chango Cruz: "The bum was up and down so many times I thought he was an Otis elevator."

Terry Lawless: "He's standing there making a sitting target of himself."

Muhammad Ali: "I'm so mean I make medicine sick."

Mike Tyson, to the Nevada State Athletic Commission: "I'm not Mother Teresa. But I'm also not Charles Manson."

Nick Wilshire: "I can only see it going one way, that's my way. How it's actually going to go I can't really say."

Muhammad Ali: "Howard Cosell was gonna be a boxer when he was a kid?only they couldn't find a mouthpiece big enough."

Tommy Farr: "Every time I hear the name Joe Louis my nose starts to bleed."

Muhammad Ali, when asked about his golf game: "I'm the best. I just haven't played yet."

Dan Duva, on Mike Tyson hooking up again with promoter Don King: " Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton."

Alan Massengale, after Don Zimmer got knocked down by Pedro Martinez in the playoffs and Evander Holyfield lost to James Toney.: "I felt sorry for Zimmer this weekend. Next time, if he wants to rumble, maybe he should pick on someone a little closer to his age. Evander Holyfield might be available."

Harry Carpenter: "Marvelous oriental pace he's got, just like a Buddhist statue."

Tex Cobb, responding to a reporter who said Cobb was a fat, cocaine snorting , drunk. Cobb replied: "I'm not fat.

Dan Duva, referring to whether or not he thought Mike Tyson would learn anything in prison: "He went to prison for three years, not Princeton."

Max Baer, when asked for his definition of fear: "Standing across the ring from Joe Louis and knowing he wants to go home early."

Muhammed Ali: "There's nothing wrong with getting knocked down, as long as you get right back up."

George Foreman: "The referee is the most important man in the ring besides the two fighters."

To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there’s no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other.
- Jack Handey

Boxing is a lot of white men watching two black men beat each other up.
- Muhammad Ali

Boxing gave me the opportunities to grow into the person that I am today.
- Alexis Arguello

When I came into boxing, I brought it to the next level with adverts and doing pantomime and people just got jealous of me doing that.
- Frank Bruno

See, I respect boxing because it has given me so much and that’s why I will never allow anyone to mistreat the sport of boxing if I can help it.
- Alexis Arguello

In no other sport is the connection between performer and observer so intimate, so frequently painful, so unresolved.
- Joyce Carol Oates

You need the whole package - boxing, interval training, weights, nutrition, rest, everything. I combine all of them together so I can become like a machine up in that ring.
- Oscar De La Hoya

Boxing is the only sport you can get your brain shook, your money took and your name in the undertaker book.
- Joe Frazier

Boxing is show-business with blood.
- David Belasco

Boxing is the toughest and loneliest sport in the world.
- Frank Bruno

This boxer is doing what is expected of him, bleeding from his nose.
- Harry Carpenter

I should warn you that underneath these clothes I’m wearing boxer shorts and I know how to use them.
- Robert Orben

Sure, there have been deaths and injuries in boxing, but none of them serious.
- Alan Minter

Lisa, if the Bible has taught us nothing else - and it hasn’t - it’s that girls should stick to girls’ sports, such as hot oil wrestling and foxy boxing and such and such.
- Homer Simpson

Boxing is the ultimate challenge. There’s nothing that can compare to testing yourself the way you do every time you step in the ring.
- Sugar Ray Leonard

Boxing is like jazz. The better it is, the less people appreciate it.
- George Foreman

Boxing is a celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for its being lost.
- Joyce Carol Oates

Boxing is a rather amorphous body, though recognizable because it is headless.
- Bob Verdi

Well, of course a boxing match is hard because boxing isn’t set for you to do good. You have to force your will upon someone, but dancing you don’t have to force your will. It should be a lot easier because if I make a mistake I don’t get hit.
- Evander Holyfield

I like boxing movies. One of the hardest things for me to watch as far as boxing films, is the boxing. The actual boxing usually sucks.
- Omar Epps

Boxing purists, quite naturally, question Tyson’s appetite for victory. Mills Lane should have stopped the fight before Tyson took a second helping.
- Fred Mitchell

All the time he’s boxing, he’s thinking. All the time he was thinking, I was hitting him.
- Jack Dempsey

Boxing is like jazz. The better it is, the less people appreciate it.
- George Foreman

In boxing, everybody has their favorites.
- Thomas Hearns

Boxing is smoky halls and kidneys battered until they bleed.
- Roger Kahn

Boxing was the only career where I wouldn’t have to start out at the bottom. I had a good resume.
- Sugar Ray Leonard

As much as I love boxing, I hate it. And as much as I hate it, I love it.
- Budd Schulberg

The bell that tolls for all in boxing belongs to a cash register.
- Bob Verdi

I did not enjoy the violence of boxing so much as the science of it.

If it was a boxing match it would be Muhammad Ali against Jimmy Krankie

Boxing is the beginning of all sports. I'm willing to bet that the first sport was a man against another man in a fight.

Boxing is an incredible sport and one of the oldest and most basic, and all the more prestigious for that.

Boxing isn't just about brute strength; it's about skill and outwitting your opponent.

I am the astronaut of boxing. Joe Louis and Dempsey were just jet pilots. I'm in a world of my own.

A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.

I was called 'Rembrandt' Hope in my boxing days, because I spent so much time on the canvas.

That was the best performance I've ever seen of any British fighter in the ring in my time in boxing [on Calzaghe destroying Lacy 2006]

If I was in a boxing match with Dennis, I'd be delighted to face him if he goes down that easily! [on Dennis Wise]

Boxing is a celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for its being lost.

I hear Peter Ebdon swims a mile every day. That means that in a year he could be 365 miles away. That is the best that we can hope for after this. If this was a boxing match it would have been stopped on Sunday night to spare the fans any more punishment

Boxing got me started on philosophy. You bash them, they bash you and you think, what's it all for?

I've seen George Foreman shadow boxing and the shadow won.

"I'm going to eat his children."
- Mike Tyson to Lennox Lewis before their fight. Lewis replied by telling the media that he did not have any children.

"Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton."
- Dan Duva, Boxing promoter, on Mike Tyson hooking up again with promoter Don King

"He's a guy who gets up at six o'clock in the morning regardless of what time it is."
- Lou Duva, veteran boxing trainer, on the Spartan training regime of heavyweight Andrew Golota

"Sure there have been injuries and even some deaths in boxing - but none of them really that serious."
Ringside Boxing Analyst

Boxers have long given us memories to remember... and I don't mean just in the ring.

Tony Galento (when asked about the Bard of Avon): "Shakespeare? I ain't never heard of him. I suppose he's one of them foreign heavyweights. They're all lousy. Sure as hell I'll moider de bum."

Mohammed Ali: It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

: I am the greatest.

: (after failing an Army intelligence test) I said I was the greatest, not the smartest.

Brian London (on being asked if he would fight Ali again): Sure, as long as he ties a 56 lb. weight to each leg."

Willie Pep: I've got it made. I've got a wife and a TV set -- and they're both working.

Tony Sibson (on being beaten in a match): I figured I'd find him sooner or later but I never did. I asked myself "Where did he go?" I knew he was there because he kept hitting me.

Tex Cobb (on an equally terrible match): When I got up I stuck to my plan -- stumbling forward and getting hit in the face.

Max Barr (on Joe Louis): He hit me 18 times while I was in the act of falling.

Anon (on Don Cockell): He is the biggest thing on canvas since "The Wreck of the Hesperus".

Harry Kabakoff (on Chango Cruz): The bum was up and down so many times I thought he was an Otis elevator.

Tommy Farr: Every time I hear the name Joe Louis my nose starts to bleed.

Willie Pastrano (when asked by the ring doctor if he knew where he was): You're damn right I do. I'm in Madison Square Garden getting the shit knocked out of me.

Henry Cooper was once confronted by a boxing abolitionist, Baroness Edith Summerskill, about the brutalities of his sport. We can all learn from his words of wisdom.

Baroness: Mr Cooper, have you looked in teh mirror lately and seen the state of your nose?
Cooper: Well madam, have you looked in the mirror and seen the state of your nose? Boxing is my excuse. What's yours?

The following conversation was heard during an amateur boxing match in the 1940s between a boxer who wanted to give up and his trainer trying to dissuade him from doing so.

Boxer: Throw in the towel.
Trainer: There's no towel.
Boxer: Throw in the sponge.
Trainer: There's no sponge.
Boxer: Then throw in the f*ing bucket!

Joe Frazier once met fellow-boxer Ken Norton at a social gathering. I am not sure if a fight followed the conversation below.

Frazier: Hey man, what you been doing?
Norton: My wife just had a baby.
Frazier? Congratulations! Whose baby is it?

Forty years after his heyday, an old opponent met Willie Pep on the street. "Do you recognise me?" he asked. Willie looked hard and considered before finally replying "Lie down so I can recognise you."

Sam Langford was one boxer for whom confidence came easily. Before the start of one match he addressed the crowd "You'll pardon me gentlemen if I make the fight short. I have a train to catch." He then knocked out his opponent in the first round and promptly left for the station. (He caught the train).

On another occasion he was fighting a 12-round match with Jack Thompson. At the start of the seventh round he extended his glove to Thompson (this was the usual ritual done in the final round of a boxing match) who was quite puzzled. "This ain't the last round Sam." he said. "It is for you," replied Sam and a punch later, Thompson was unconscious.

While we're on the topic of boxing, why did Ali show more sense than many of his countrymen and refuse to serve in Vietnam? In his own words:

"Keep asking me no matter how long,
On the war in Vietnam I sing this song'
I ain't got no quarrel with the Viet Cong."

"In no other sport is the connection between performer and observer so intimate, so frequently painful, so unresolved." - Joyce Carol Oates

Muhammad Ali

"Ali was primarily a brilliant ring strategist. A prodigy in his youth whose fast hands and feet made him virtually impossible to hit. What joy in the young Ali: in the inimitable arrogance of a heavyweight, who danced about his puzzled opponents with his gloves at waist level, inviting them to hit him - to try it."

Oscar De La Hoya

"You need the whole package - boxing, interval training, weights, nutrition, rest, everything. I combine all of them together so I can become like a machine up in that ring." - Oscar De La Hoya

Evander holyfield

"A champion shows who he is by what he does when he's tested. When a person gets up and says 'I can still do it', he's a champion." - Evander Holyfield

Sugar Ray Leonard

"It is wonderful. It truly is. It is the only thing that is real! It's you against me, it's challenging another guy's manhood. With gloves. Words cannot describe that feeling - of being a man, of being a gladiator, of being a warrior. It's irreplaceable." - Sugar Ray Leonard

Shane Mosley

"The Glory is the issue to me. Money comes and goes, but a legacy stays forever. I hate to lose" - Shane Mosley

Evander Holyfield & Lennox Lewis

"I'll be glad to see him coming into the ring because that's where it gets hard, where whatever you say doesn't mean a thing and you have to be honest and just fight." - Lennox Lewis

Ali's quotes
Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali has entertained the world for more than 40 years with his legendary one-liners, witticisms and diatribes.

Here BBC Sport rounds up some of the things he has said during his lifetime in and out of the ring.

If we've missed any, make sure you tell us using the 606 link at the bottom of this page (Web users only, WAP phone readers will not see link).

ON BEING THE GREATEST

I'm not the greatest; I'm the double greatest. Not only do I knock 'em out, I pick the round.

It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.

Floats like a butterfly, sting like a bee, his hands can't hit what his eyes can't see.
Before the 1974 fight against George Foreman

I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalised a brick; I'm so mean I make medicine sick.
Again, before the 1974 Foreman fight

I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and got into bed before the room was dark.
Yet more '74 pre-fight build-up ahead of facing Foreman

The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.

Superman don't need no seatbelt.

When you can whip any man in the world, you never know peace.

I'm the best. I just haven't played yet.
On playing golf

ON BOXING

Boxing is a lot of white men watching two black men beat each other up.

Champions aren't made in gyms, champions are made from something they have deep inside them - a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.

Only the nose knows where the nose goes when the doors close.

I never thought of losing, but now that it's happened, the only thing is to do it right. That's my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.
After losing to Ken Norton, 31 March 1973

ON RACE, RELIGION AND LIFE

I am America. I am the part you won't recognise. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.

Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn't choose it and I don't want it. I am Muhammad Ali, a free name - it means beloved of God - and I insist people use it when people speak to me and of me.
Announcing his conversion to the Muslim faith after first Sonny Liston fight

"What's my name, fool? What's my name?"
To Ernie Terrell during their 1967 fight - Terrell had refused to call him Muhammad Ali

I know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin' hell, but as long as they ain't free, I ain't free.

Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs?

I got nothing against no Viet Cong. No Vietnamese ever called me a 'nigger'.

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.
Before his fight against Jerry Quarry in 1970.

A man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.

What's really hurting me - the name Islam is involved, and Muslim is involved and causing trouble and starting hate and violence. Islam is not a killer religion, Islam means peace. I couldn't just sit home and watch people label Muslims as the reason for this problem.
21 September 2001, in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks

ALI vs FRAZIER

Frazier is so ugly that he should donate his face to the US Bureau of Wildlife.
Ali

It will be a killer, and a chiller, and a thriller, when I get the gorilla in Manila
Ali, before the "Thrilla in Manila" against Frazier

Joe Frazier is so ugly that when he cries, the tears turn around and go down the back of his head.
Ali

I always bring out the best in men I fight, but Joe Frazier, I'll tell the world right now, brings out the best in me. I'm gonna tell ya, that's one helluva man, and God bless him.
Ali, after the "Thrilla in Manila"

I said a lot of things in the heat of the moment that I shouldn't have said. Called him names I shouldn't have called him. I apologise for that. I'm sorry. It was all meant to promote the fight.
Ali

The Butterfly and me have been through some ups and downs and there have been lots of emotions, many of them bad. But I have forgiven him. I had to. You cannot hold out for ever. There were bruises in my heart because of the words he used. I spent years dreaming about him and wanting to hurt him. But you have got to throw that stick out of the window. Do not forget that we needed each other, to produce some of the greatest fights of all time.
Frazier in reflective mood.

ON OTHER OPPONENTS

Hey Floyd - I seen you! Someday I'm gonna whup you! Don't you forget, I am the greatest!
To then-world heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson during the 1960 Olympic Games.

Why, Chump, I bet you scare yourself to death just starin' in the mirror. You ugly bear! You ain't never fought nobody but tramps and has beens. You call yourself a world champion? You're too old and slow to be champion!
To Sonny Liston before their fight on 25 February 1964

I shook up the world! I shook up the world!
After beating Liston

That all you got George?
To Foreman late in the Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire on 30 October 1974

"Ali was primarily a brilliant ring strategist. A prodigy in his youth whose fast hands and feet made him virtually impossible to hit. What joy in the young Ali: in the inimitable arrogance of a heavyweight, who danced about his puzzled opponents with his gloves at waist level, inviting them to hit him - to try it."

"In no other sport is the connection between performer and observer so intimate, so frequently painful, so unresolved." - Joyce Carol Oates



"You need the whole package - boxing, interval training, weights, nutrition, rest, everything. I combine all of them together so I can become like a machine up in that ring." - Oscar De La Hoya

"A champion shows who he is by what he does when he's tested. When a person gets up and says 'I can still do it', he's a champion." - Evander Holyfield

"It is wonderful. It truly is. It is the only thing that is real! It's you against me, it's challenging another guy's manhood. With gloves. Words cannot describe that feeling - of being a man, of being a gladiator, of being a warrior. It's irreplaceable." - Sugar Ray Leonard

"The Glory is the issue to me. Money comes and goes, but a legacy stays forever. I hate to lose" - Shane Mosley

"I'll be glad to see him coming into the ring because that's where it gets hard, where whatever you say doesn't mean a thing and you have to be honest and just fight." - Lennox Lewis

"If they cut my bald head open, they will find one big boxing glove. That's all I am. I live it." - Marvin Hagler

Tonya Harding (1970-) U.S. figure skater
"There are some similarities between boxing and skating. Both require power and grace. Physically, boxing is obviously much harder."

Evander Holyfield (1962-) U.S. boxer
"He spit out his mouthpiece and bit my ear... I went back and hit him with some good shots and he bit my ear again. He bit me on purpose."

Kin Hubbard (1868-1930) U.S. cartoonist
"The hardest thing about boxing is picking up your teeth with a boxing glove on."

Roger Kahn (1927-) U.S. author
"Boxing is smoky halls and kidneys battered until they bleed."

Jake LaMotta (1921-), (Giacobe LaMotta) U.S. boxer
"I fought Sugar Ray Robinson so many times, it's a wonder I didn't get diabetes."

Sugar Ray Leonard (1956-) U.S. boxer
"In the ring I can feel that halo over my head turn into those two little horns."

Lennox Lewis (1965-) Canadian/English boxer
"I wanted to complete my legacy as the best fighter on the planet."
"They should remember me as being the greatest boxer of my era and I did it with dignity, pride, honor. And also retired at the right time."

Joe Louis (1914-1981), (Joe Louis Barrow) U.S. boxer
(About Max Schmeling) "I had nothing personally against Max, but in my mind, I wasn't champion until I beat him. The rest of it - black against white - was somebody's talk. I had nothing against the man, except I had to beat him for myself."

Burgess Meredith (1908-1997) U.S. actor
"You had the talent to become a good fighter and instead you became a leg-breaker for some cheap second-rate loan shark. You're a bum."

Sugar Ray Robinson (1921-1989), (Walker Smith, Jr.) U.S. boxer
"Hurting people is my business."
"You know, I never liked fighting, although I guess I owe everything to the ring."

Max Schmeling (1905-2005) German boxer
"A win over Joe Louis might have made me the perfect Aryan of the Third Reich. The Nazis tried to use me but I used them to help other people."
(About rematch with Joe Louis) "Looking back, I'm almost happy I lost that fight. Just imagine if I would have come back to Germany with a victory. I had nothing to do with the Nazis, but they would have given me a medal."

Mike Tyson (1966-) U.S. boxer
"...after that fight with Lennox Lewis, I felt purified...I don't know if he whooped my ass and baptized me at the same time, but I felt clean and ready to start over."
"I'm not as deep and complicated as people think."
(About Lennox Lewis) "My main objective is to be professional but to kill him."

Chuck Wepner (1946-) U.S. boxer
"I was 6'1' when I started fighting, but with all the uppercuts I'm up to 6'5'."
"My best three punches were the choke hold, the rabbit punch and the head butt."

Frankie Dunn drama film character
"Girly, tough ain't enough."

Muhammad Ali (1942-), (Cassius Clay) U.S. boxer
"I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong."
"It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I just beat people up."
"My toughest fight was with my first wife."
"There are no pleasures in a fight, but some of my fights have been a pleasure to win."
"They all fall in the round I call."

Max Baer (1909-1959) U.S. boxer
"Even as a kid I didn't want to fight because even if I won I'd come home with a ripped shirt and get a worse whipping from my mother."
"I never had a fight out of the ring. I never harmed anyone outside the ring. I loved people."

Michael Buffer (1944-) U.S. sportscaster
"Let's get ready to rumble!"

George Chuvalo (1937-) Canadian boxer
"A fighter always thinks he coulda done better than he did. There's always a gnawing kind of feeling that I wish I could have been champion of the world."

"As a kid, I remember when I first opened up a Ring magazine. It was the first time I'd ever seen anything about boxing, heard anything about boxing or even knowing about boxing. For me it was like when a kid opens up the centerfold of Playboy."

Robert De Niro (1943-) U.S. actor
"You never got me down, Ray. You hear me? Never got me down."

Clint Eastwood (1930-) U.S. actor and director
"Girly, tough ain't enough."
"If I take you on, you don't question me. And I'm going to try to forget the fact that you're a girl."

George Foreman (1949-) U.S. boxer
"I used to look rugged and old, until I got into boxing, and they beat me into a baby face."
"There's more to boxing than hitting. There's not getting hit, for instance."
(About his comeback) "I didn't come back for the money. I just got sick of beating people up for free."
(About why he named all his sons George) "In boxing...you have to prepare for memory loss. I wanted to make sure I didn't forget anybody's name."

Al Franken (1951-) U.S. comedian
"To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other."

Morgan Freeman (1937-) U.S. actor
"Boxing is about respect. Getting it for yourself and taking it away from the other guy."

Tony Galento (1909-1979) U.S. boxer
"I'll moider de bum."

1.

Don King, on boxing's rating system: "When we started, it was based on lies. It's changing now. There are no secrets in the business. You've got to come with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's becoming very confusing."
2.

Bob Arum, replying to a reporters question. "Yesterday I was lying, today I am telling the truth."
3.

Muhammad Ali: "If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you."
4.

Buddy McGirt, when he was asked by Gil Clancy who would win the up-coming fight between Maurice Blocker and Glenwood Brown he replied: "The black guy."
5.

Harry Carpenter: "This boxer is doing what is expected of him, bleeding from his nose."
6.

Jack Handy, Deep Thoughts: "To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography and the dancers hit each other."
7.

Muhammed Ali, after failing an Army intelligence test, "I said I was the greatest, not the smartest."
8.

Brian London, answering if he would fight Ali again: "Sure, as long as he ties a 56 lb. weight to each leg."
9.

Willie Pep: "I've got it made. I've got a wife and a TV set -- and they're both working."
10.

Here is a conversation between George Foreman and Bob Arum in 1995, Foreman: "Bob, I can't chase these guys anymore." Arum's reply: "George, I cant put it in the contracts that they can't run."
11.

Randall "Tex" Cobb: "If you screw things up in tennis, it's 15-love. If you screw up in boxing, it's your ass."
12.

Bob Hope: "I was called "Rembrandt" Hope in my boxing days, because I spent so much time on the canvas."
13.

Bob Arum, after his fighter, Iran Barkley, beat Darrian Van Horn: "If you think Barkley was mad before the fight, wait until he sees how many people are taking part of his purse."
14.

Marlene Bugner, wife of Joe Bugner: "I don't know what impressive is, but Joe was impressive tonight."
15.

Muhammad Ali, on heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston: "He's too ugly to be the champ!"
16.

Jim Watt, former WBC lightweight champion, when asked about his "white complexion" by a reporter said: "I'm like a bottle of milk with gloves."
17.

Tony Galento, when asked about Shakespeare: "I ain't never heard of him. I suppose he's one of them foreign heavyweights. They're all lousy. Sure as hell I'll moider de bum."
18.

Tony Sibson, on being beaten in a match: "I figured I'd find him sooner or later but I never did. I asked myself "Where did he go?" I knew he was there because he kept hitting me."
19.

Muhammad Ali: "It's hard to be humble, when you're as great as I am."
20.

Mike Tyson, on fighting Lennox Lewis: "My main objective is to be professional, but to kill him."
21.

Harry Carpenter: "He looks up through blood smeared lips."
22.

Joe Frazier, talking to Ken Norton at a social gathering. Frazier: "Hey man, what you been doing?"; Norton: "My wife just had a baby."; Frazier: "Congratulations! Whose baby is it?"
23.

Muhammad Ali, on an upcoming fight with Floyd Patterson: "I'll beat him so bad he'll need a shoehorn to put his hat on."
24.

Willie Pep, talking to an old opponent years after each retired. "Do you recognize me?" the old opponent asked. Willie looked hard and considered before finally replying "Lie down so I can recognize you."
25.

Mark Kaylor: "I'm concentrating so much I don't know what I'm doing half the time."
26.

Muhammad Ali: "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."
27.

Willie Pastrano, when asked by the ring doctor if he knew where he was: "You're damn right I do. I'm in Madison Square Garden getting the shit knocked out of me."
28.

Henry Cooper, replying to boxing abolitionist, Baroness Edith Summerskill, about the brutalities of his sport. Baroness: "Mr. Cooper, have you looked in the mirror lately and seen the state of your nose?"
Cooper: "Well madam, have you looked in the mirror and seen the state of your nose? Boxing is my excuse. What's yours?"
29.

Muhammad Ali: "It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up."
30.

Eddie Shaw, referring to Herol "Bomber" Graham : "He has turned defensive boxing into a poetic art. Trouble is, nobody ever knocked anybody out with a poem."
31.

Alan Minter: "Sure there have been injuries and deaths in boxing - but none of them serious."
32.

Mike Tyson, on writer Wallace Matthews: "[He] called me a 'rapist' and a 'recluse'. I'm not a recluse."
33.

Harry Carpenter: "It's not one of Bruno's fastest wins... but it's one of them."
34.

Mark Kaylor: "I've only ever seen Errol Christie fight once before and that was the best I've ever seen him fight."
35.

Lou Duva, Veteran boxing trainer, on the spartan training regimen of heavyweight Andrew Golota: "He's a guy who gets up at six o'clock in the morning regardless of what time it is."
36.

Randall "Tex" Cobb: "When I got up I stuck to my plan -- stumbling forward and getting hit in the face."
37.

Muhammad Ali: "I ain't got no quarrel with those Viet Cong."
38.

Blackie Sherrod, talking about a heavyweight contender: "He has everything a boxer needs except speed, stamina, a punch, and ability to take punishment. In other words, he owns a pair of shorts."
39.

Max Barr, on Joe Louis: "He hit me 18 times while I was in the act of falling."
40.

Harry Kabakoff, on Chango Cruz: "The bum was up and down so many times I thought he was an Otis elevator."
41.

Terry Lawless: "He's standing there making a sitting target of himself."
42.

Muhammad Ali: "I'm so mean I make medicine sick."
43.

Mike Tyson, to the Nevada State Athletic Commission: "I'm not Mother Teresa. But I'm also not Charles Manson."
44.

Nick Wilshire: "I can only see it going one way, that's my way. How it's actually going to go I can't really say."
45.

Muhammad Ali: "Howard Cosell was gonna be a boxer when he was a kid�only they couldn't find a mouthpiece big enough."
46.

Tommy Farr: "Every time I hear the name Joe Louis my nose starts to bleed."
47.

Muhammad Ali, when asked about his golf game: "I'm the best. I just haven't played yet."
48.

Dan Duva, on Mike Tyson hooking up again with promoter Don King: " Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton."
49.

Alan Massengale, after Don Zimmer got knocked down by Pedro Martinez in the playoffs and Evander Holyfield lost to James Toney.: "I felt sorry for Zimmer this weekend. Next time, if he wants to rumble, maybe he should pick on someone a little closer to his age. Evander Holyfield might be available."
50.

Harry Carpenter: "Marvelous oriental pace he's got, just like a Buddhist statue."
51.

Tex Cobb, responding to a reporter who said Cobb was a fat, cocaine snorting , drunk. Cobb replied: "I'm not fat.
52.

Dan Duva, referring to whether or not he thought Mike Tyson would learn anything in prison: "He went to prison for three years, not Princeton."
53.

Max Baer, when asked for his definition of fear: "Standing across the ring from Joe Louis and knowing he wants to go home early."
54.

Muhammed Ali: "There's nothing wrong with getting knocked down, as long as you get right back up."
55.

George Foreman: "The referee is the most important man in the ring besides the two fighters."

Of course that is not the whole story, but that is the way with stories; we make them what we will. It's a way of explaining the universe while leaving the universe unexplained, it's a way of keeping it all alive, not boxing it into time. Everyone who tel
Author: Jeanette Winterson

I say get an education. Become an electrician, a mechanic, a doctor, a lawyer — anything but a fighter. In this trade, it's the managers that make the money and last the longest.
Author: Muhammad Ali

I'm a baaaadd man!!
Author: Muhammad Ali

He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.
Author: Muhammad Ali

To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you're not, pretend you are.
Author: Muhammad Ali

Statement after losing his first fight to Ken Norton, March 31, 1973: I never thought of losing, but now that it's happened, the only thing is to do it right. That's my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.
Author: Muhammad Ali

If my fans think I can do everything I say I can do, then they're crazier than I am. After one of his fight predictions turned out to be wrong.
Author: Muhammad Ali

I am America. I am the part you won't recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.
Author: Muhammad Ali

God gave me this illness to remind me that I'm not number One; he is.
Author: Muhammad Ali

Pleasure is not happiness. It has no more importance than a shadow following a man.
Author: Muhammad Ali

I'm gonna have to be killed before I lose, and I ain't going to die easy.
Author: Muhammad Ali

Explaining why he refused induction into the Army. I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Congs.
Author: Muhammad Ali

It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
Author: Muhammad Ali

My toughest fight was with my first wife.
Author: Muhammad Ali

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
Author: Muhammad Ali

Don't count the days, make the days count.
Author: Muhammad Ali

There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.
Author: Muhammad Ali

Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even
Author: Muhammad Ali

The service you do for others is the rent you pay for the time you spend on earth.
Author: Muhammad Ali

Service to others is the rent which you pay for your room here on earth.
Author: Muhammad Ali

Superman don't need no seat belt. [Comment to flight attendant, who replied, 'Superman don't need no airplane, either.']
Author: Muhammad Ali

I'm the best. I just haven't played yet [on his golf game].
Author: Muhammad Ali

Fifteen referees. I want fifteen referees to be at this fight because there ain't no one man who can keep up with the pace I'm gonna set except me. There's not a man alive who can whup me. I'm too fast. I'm too smart. I'm too pretty. I should be a postage stamp. That's the only way I'll ever get licked.
Author: Muhammad Ali

The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses — behind the lines, in the gym and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.
Author: Muhammad Ali

Let the other guy have whatever he wants before the fight. Once the bell rings he's gonna be disappointed anyway. Rrelating boxing advice he received from Archie Moore on posturing before a fight.
Author: George Foreman

tl/dr? :neo:

Great post, there are some classic ones there

"Blackie Sherrod, talking about a heavyweight contender: "He has everything a boxer needs except speed, stamina, a punch, and ability to take punishment. In other words, he owns a pair of shorts."


This one actually made me laugh out loud

tl/fwp

Repetitive...

long but some good ones