When you're coming up, and you have Matt Hughes, Tim Sylvia, Jens Pulver and Pat Miletich, Jeremy Horn to train with and compete with - guys that have fought in Japan, all over the world - and you see these guys every day, you just embrace the grind and get after it: you have no choice but to succeed.

I'm not just a guy who can knock people out.

The thing is I always believed in myself. I always believed that I was going to be the best in the world.

I'm not gonna tell any man what he should do in life.

Who am I to say anybody can't do what they want to do and create their own destiny if they believe in something?

I'm just willing to do a lot, take a lot, and force people into a fight. That's something a lot of people aren't ready to do. Some people are.

I don't really dabble into the politics of MMA too much.

I always thought I could be the best, and that's what I've been doing all these years.

Obviously, CM Punk is a really big draw for the UFC. He's going to bring a lot of eyes to the UFC, and the better he does, the better it'll be for all MMA fighters as far as sponsorships and stuff.

When push comes to shove, I'm a fighter, and I'm going to force someone to fight. It takes a lot of technique, it takes a lot of skill, but to take that, and make something of it, it's a lot of heart and a lot of determination, and that's something I have. That's who I am.

I'm just a quiet guy who loved to fight.

Drew McFedries was the hardest hitter I've ever been around. A big, strong, athletic guy with power. He didn't have to hit you with a hard shot or load up - even the little short shots could hurt you.

My coaches have done a good job of tightening my skills, where I can dictate a little bit more where the fight is going.

I want it to be one-sided. I don't want to take any bumps or bruises: I want to go out and dictate all aspects and go out the way I came in. I'm looking to dominate and dictate.

You don't appreciate what you have when it all comes to you real quick. I went from nothing to everything all at once.

I never lost sight of my goals. I never stopped thinking I could reach the top.

I fought for, like, five years in Hawaii - nothing better than that. It was awesome. Every fight, I went on vacation, and I wasn't cutting any weight, so I could just eat whatever I wanted. I enjoyed it.

I'm just fighting a lot of high-level guys. I feel everyone is trying to be tactical, everyone is trying to put their A-game out there, and I have to find a way to win. I'm all about moving on and trying to get better.

It doesn't matter who I'm facing. I'm concentrating on myself.

I just move forward and not worry about the things I can't control.

I was getting a lot of good work with my wrestling up in Iowa, but I needed a more all-around game, striking, jiu-jitsu at a high level. I had a lot of good coaches out at ATT to work with. They pushed me. Everything was smarter. Everything was precise.

Holly Holm is a heck of an athlete and a heck of a fighter.

I don't really pick my opponents.

There's always going to be some phenom fighter coming up. If they're special athletes and highly trained, they'll do big things.

I'm just trying to be a better fighter every time I compete, so it's all about being more strategic and looking for a way to get a finish.

I was always into martial arts and boxing.

Fighting somebody like Manhoef, who can take anyone out at any point in time - that was a big win for me and one of the best finishes. In that fight, it wasn't looking good for me, but I kept believing in myself and was able to land a big shot, which was huge!

You want to go out there, and you want to be sharp, and you want to execute your game plan and... get it done fast.

Every fighter wants to... take the least amount of damage possible.

I was a striker before a wrestler. I've always wanted to knock people out.

I've been fighting for a long time.

He's been doing this a long time. Hats off to a champion, Carlos Condit.

I'm not a matchmaker; I don't run the UFC - I'm a fighter. So I'll stick to doing what I do best: training and punching people.

When I came back to the UFC, I was just excited.

American politics is theatre. There is a frightening emotionalism at national conventions.

Few American presidents are held in higher esteem than Thomas Jefferson. Though historians have scrutinized every phase of his long public career and found him wanting in a number of respects, he holds an unshakable place in the pantheon of American heroes.

Truman is now seen as a near-great president because he put in place the containment doctrine boosted by the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan and NATO, which historians now see as having been at the center of American success in the cold war.

In seeking an empire of liberty, Jefferson wished not only to expand the country's territorial holdings, but also to extend American institutions around the globe.

The so-called second New Deal of 1935 - including the Works Progress Administration, Social Security and the Wagner Act legalizing union labor - represented an effort to meet the rising voices demanding a more aggressive government approach to the collapse of national prosperity.

Allegations that President Clinton pardoned Marc Rich partly in return for donations to his presidential library have raised questions about the value of such institutions and the federal appropriations that support them.

Public scandals are America's favorite parlor sport. Learning about the flaws and misdeeds of the rich and famous seems to satisfy our egalitarian yearnings.

Joseph McCarthy and the John Birch Society launched an anti-Communist crusade that won the support of millions of Americans in the 1950s.

Vice President Biden's surprising declaration of unqualified support for gay marriage seems to have forced President Obama into a public endorsement of a controversial social issue. It is difficult not to suspect that Biden's pronouncement aimed to give the president some political cover.

To be sure, Kennedy did not discount the importance of words in rallying the nation to meet its foreign and domestic challenges. Winston Churchill's powerful exhortations during World War II set a standard he had long admired. Kennedy was hardly unmindful of how important a great inaugural address could be.

After one party loses two elections in a row, there's sort of blood in the water.

What did in the Soviet Union was the Soviet Union.

One doesn't simply write about Lyndon Johnson. You get the Johnson treatment from beyond the grave - arm around you, nose to nose. I should admit that he also reminds me of my father, quite an overbearing and narcissistic character. And in some ways, he reminds me of myself. Another workaholic.

In the late 19th century, the Populists - a protest movement of mainly disaffected farmers and workers - threatened to overturn established authority.

Compared with other recent presidents whose stumbles and failures have assaulted the national self-esteem, memories of Kennedy continue to give the country faith that its better days are ahead. That's been reason enough to discount his limitations and remain enamored of his presidential performance.

At the end of the day, Americans are not so keen on ideologues, people who have such fixed positions that they can't see any virtue in the other side's point of view.