Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

Every time I fought at home, I gave my fans a knockout. I spoiled my fan base in Cincinnati.

At six years old, I told my dad that I would be world champion, and on Nov. 26, 2011, I am.

Adrian Granados is a world-class fighter. A lot of guys duck him, but I wanted to fight him because that's what I'm about.

I don't try to knock out people.

To come to somebody's hometown and beat them on a split decision, that's saying something.

God doesn't make mistakes.

I'm a competitor.

You can't overlook anybody in this sport.

The sky is the limit for me, but in boxing you have to take it one fight at a time.

Jessie Vargas is not as good as those guys I lost to.

I'm a four-time world champion, so I don't want to hear anything about my losses.

I hope I get credit when I beat Jessie Vargas. I hope I get the credit I deserve. People want me to lose and go away, but guess what? I worked harder than ever for this fight. I'm not losing to Jessie Vargas.

Looking back at all of my defeats, the only real punishment that I've taken in this sport was against Maidana. I got a fractured jaw.

I come from Cincinnati.

School really didn't work for me.

What am I gonna do to be successful and provide for my family? I was like, I want to play basketball, I love basketball, but I'm too short. I'm not gonna cooperate in school... Boxing. I always found boxing, it always came back to boxing, boxing, boxing. Boxing, this is it, this is gonna be the thing gonna take me over the the top.

I want to do things that no one has ever done inside the ring and outside the ring as a boxer and further my career in the entertainment business after I'm done with boxing.

When you match my body size with my talent and my work ethic and my IQ as a boxer inside that ring, I really have it all, and I'm flexible enough to really jump up to any weight - '40, '47 or '54, for the right opponent.

I want everybody to love me because I want to love back.

Al Haymon, one thing I can say about him, is he is a very honest guy. Very honest. He don't sell dreams, he makes dreams come true. And that's what he did for me.

Really, my biggest risk was just the initial step to quit my day job to do music. I was packaging and shipping for an art gallery in Manhattan; I went to school for painting, so I always wanted to work around artwork, even though I wasn't really contributing anything to the scene.

I had been using a 4-track and a digital 8-track in the '90s, and it was this huge complicated thing. But GarageBand is right there.

My brother came home from college with a Mountain Goats cassette and I was like, 'What is this?' The lyrics were crazy to me. I'd never heard anything like it.

I don't see any of my records as any more or less conceptual than the others, and I don't really plan some overall idea in advance. The songs all get written under the umbrella of a certain time in your life, and it's natural to find themes that repeat within these periods.

I have been inspired by countless artists over the years, but there's also times when you just gotta make your own inspiration.

Ultimately, I really like to rap, and seeing what I can do to keep it fresh for myself has lent itself to tailoring over time.

Having some decent musicians around you only expands what you can do production-wise, but I make rap - I can't really see myself doing much else.

I was a Kimya fan for a long time, a Moldy Peaches fan, so I got to work on her 'Thunder Thighs' record a little bit and we became friends and just started writing songs.

New York can be a tad stressful.

Honestly, I don't feel pressure to live up to anything I've done because I tend to not listen to my work once a year passes.

I know a lot of people who make records, and when you meet them, it's not their personality or they're not what you're expecting. But El-P is exactly what you'd expect.

I've been able to tour because of my music and I've learned a lot about myself while on the road. I think some of the imagery of my writing are snapshots of where I've been and my feelings about the world.

I always keep my phone on vibrate. Ringtones give me anxiety.

I love a cool cellphone as much as the next guy, but, god, I hate when it rings.

To be honest, I think Chris Ware is the only person whose books I've actively and consistently purchased for years.

After much inner debate, I can safely proclaim that Mungo Jerry's 'In the Summertime' may, in fact, be the best song ever recorded.

I avoided the computer generation for a very long time.

The neighbors prefer I don't do vocals at night. It gets a little iffy when I'm screaming.

When I record in a studio. I know that on Tuesday at 3 o'clock I've got to go be creative.

I guess all that I can hope for is that my songs affect the younger versions of me out there.