"The Internal Revenue Service is the real undefeated heavyweight champion."

"If you can maintain that integrity in whatever you do, you can't go wrong. That's what I tell my kids, anyway."

"It's strange because you - your life goes so swiftly. You look up one day you're a teenager, the next day you're a grandfather and you want to decide, 'I sure hope my kids don't make the same mistakes.'"

"Boxing has been the most difficult thing I've ever done. The biggest challenge in my life. I was a boxer. That was hard. Everything else is pretty easy."

"As you get better and better working out, there's no one who can keep up with you running. If you don't have a good dog, it's going to be the most lonesome training camp you'll ever have."

"People are hurt in love affairs and never recover, more than a boxing match."

"We all think we've got one more boxing match in us, and that, probably, will be the downfall of Floyd Mayweather, George Foreman, Manny Pacquiao. We'll overstay our welcome."

"The integration of a headgear in professional boxing would do so much to make it safer for young men. They could go into the sport, make a lot of money and then come out and be good grandfathers."

"I've been on the opposite side of decisions before when the crowd would be booing and saying that I lost. I've lived with it. Judging in boxing has been same since the beginning, and it isn't gonna change."

"I'd have to say losing the title to Ali in '74 was the lowest moment in sports for me. It was the most devastating thing in my boxing career, and it still hurts to this day."

"I'm a winner each and every time I go into the ring."

"When I was a boxer, I wanted to be champion of the world, not the richest man in the world."

"But boxing was my profession. I had to go back the second time because I was broke and I couldn't just go and get a college degree and earn it. I had too many bills, too many families."

"I cannot remember a time when I was not getting into fights."

"You don't have to try to hurt people and be angry to be an athlete."

"It would be hard to throw a punch to someone who wasn't a boxer, who wasn't in the ring, and who didn't have on a pair of boxing gloves and who hadn't been training."

"You wouldn't meet a Joe Frazier down today and then up tomorrow, said hello to big shots then ignore someone on the lower level; he was the most consistent human being. What you see is what you get."

"I wanted to be champ of the world, but I kept hoping something would happen to Frazier. I didn't want to fight him. Nobody wanted to fight Joe Frazier."

"I got a strength coach. My wife. She gets big chains, and at night she puts them around the refrigerator. They are so strong, I can't break them."

"When I left boxing in 1977 to be a preacher, I couldn't make a fist after I learned about Jesus Christ."

"I tell my sons all the time, 'The most important thing in your life is fitness,' but a lot of fighters go overboard."

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

"When I was a kid in Houston, we were so poor we couldn't afford the last 2 letters, so we called ourselves po'."

"I dread handshakes. I've got some problems with my hands, and everywhere I go, people want to impress me with their grip. To make it worse, now women are coming up with that firm shake."