Ali’s got a left, Ali’s got a right – when he knocks you down, you’ll sleep for the night; and when you lie on the floor and the ref counts to ten, hope and pray that you never meet me again.

I used to tease Joe Louis by reminding him that I was the greatest of all time. But Joe Louis was the greatest heavyweight fighter ever.

Losing is not an option in Kolkata. It’s not easy, a lot of players even quit.

I’ve read a lot of books on the laws of attraction, and in my home, I have a big book on Muhammad Ali, which I’ve read because he is, like, a hero of mine, but other than that, no, I’m not a big reader.

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.

Before broadcasting for 50-some years, I did TV, played 10 years in the big leagues, won a world championship – and played a big part in that, too, letting the Cardinals inject me with hepatitis. Takes a big man to do that.

Better to fight for something than live for nothing.

It’s good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.

I need to do well and show I’m a worthy driver in F1.

That’s what you live for as a sportsman. You have to put up a fight.

As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.

People don’t realize what they had till it’s gone. Like President Kennedy, there was no one like him, the Beatles, and my man Elvis Presley. I was the Elvis of boxing.

Any top-level athlete, it’s always the same. There’s always that hint of arrogance there… It’s hard to be humble when you’re the best.

A good boxing competition gives one the sight of fine men in their prime, trained to the ounce, showing the highest skill, pluck and endurance in carrying out their attack and defence under strict rules of fair play and good temper.

People say that I’m a boxer. I actually started with kick boxing, and then I moved onto boxing, and then I moved onto grappling.

There’s been a lot of talk of me being a one-man show but that’s simply not the case. We win games when I score 40 points and we’ve won when I score 10.

I’d be so bored if I wasn’t going out there, knowing that I could still do it. So, I’m going to work hard to be ready to go, and I still plan on playing for a long time.

I would say things like ‚I am the greatest! I’m pretty! If you talk jive, you’ll drop in five! I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee! I’m pretty!‘ When white people heard me talking like this, some said, ‚That black man talks too much. He’s bragging.‘

To me, football is so much about mental toughness, it’s digging deep, it’s doing whatever you need to do to help a team win and that comes in a lot of shapes and forms.

I’m more than comfortable just sitting back and scoring 21, 22 points or whatever and getting 10, 11 assists whatever the case might be. More than comfortable with that. It’s just a matter of the pieces that you have around you and what you can do to elevate everybody else.

You think the world was shocked when Nixon resigned? Wait till I whup George Foreman’s behind.

I have the Midas touch, in the way that when I hook up with a project, I feel, not speaking cocky or conceited, but there’s a confidence I have. I learned that from Muhammad Ali; I used to bodyguard him. He taught me about confidence. So when it comes to any job I work, I’m gonna do it good; I’m going to bring it over the top.

I have two Golden Boot awards at home. It would be nice to win another, but I wouldn’t mind it if I didn’t.

Once you get on the playing field it’s not about whether you’re liked or not liked. All that matters is to play at a high level and do whatever it takes to help your team win. That’s what it’s about.

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

Boxing is limited fighting with a specific rule set. Fighting is true, where you can do anything.

As a kid, even I knew everything about my favourite cricketers. I used to know everything possible. Now I see kids knowing about me. It feels good.

Obviously everybody, if you’re playing in the league, you’ve got to have somewhat of an ego about how you play the game.

We are like boxers, one never knows how much longer one has.

We come bulletproof in Ireland. We’re reared tough, and we fight.

I know what I do for my team and what my teammates expect of me on both ends of the floor.

We all started playing football against our best friends, and I can’t remember a moment where, because it was my best friend, I did not want to win against him.

The nice thing is that when people come up to me, it’s the football they remember, not all the other rubbish.

If I do the right things on and off the field that’s how a player is going to learn.

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.

Believe me, I’m much easier to be around when we win than when we lose.

I’m proud to play for Real Madrid because I have fun; when you no longer have fun it’s a sign that it’s time to leave. For now though, I’m happy here at the greatest club in the world.

When we have the ball, the other team has to run. The most important thing is for the players to be prepared to be a little bit wild.

The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.

The biggest thrill a ballplayer can have is when your son takes after you. That happened when my Bobby was in his championship Little League game. He really showed me something. Struck out three times. Made an error that lost the game. Parents were throwing things at our car and swearing at us as we drove off. Gosh, I was proud.

Rule number one is: Beat your team-mate.

Joe Frazier got hit more than me – and he doesn’t have Parkinson’s.

You’re not going to see my sense of humor on the football field. That’s not a place for me to joke around.

I like the celebrations when I see my teammates do it, when I see fellow footballers on the international scene do it. I think it looks good, it suits most of them, if you know what to do, synchronise, then do it.

When I step forward on the floor, I have the confidence that I’m the best player playing that night and that I am the most prepared at what I need to be doing.

That was always the difference between Muhammad Ali and the rest of us. He came, he saw, and if he didn’t entirely conquer – he came as close as anybody we are likely to see in the lifetime of this doomed generation.

I used to dream about taking the ball ‚round the keeper, stopping it on the line, and then getting on my hands and knees and heading it into the net. When I scored against Benfica in the 1968 European Cup final, I nearly did it. I left the keeper for dead, but then I chickened out.

I calculate that I took 20,000 punches, but I earned millions and kept a lot of it. I may talk slow, but my mind is OK.

Even the best and biggest teams in the world do not reach finals of tournaments.

I’m all for a good rivalry as long as lines are drawn.

If they let people go fight jiu-jitsu tournaments, they can’t stop me going to fight a boxing fight.

It never bothered me when people would say, ‚You only win championships because you’re playing with Shaq.‘ It bothered me when he said it.

I have been so great in boxing they had to create an image like Rocky, a white image on the screen, to counteract my image in the ring. America has to have its white images, no matter where it gets them. Jesus, Wonder Woman, Tarzan and Rocky.

It’s rule number one, really – beating your teammate.

The game of golf would lose a great deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green.

I make impact plays. I make game-changing plays.

No boxer in the history of boxing has had Parkinson’s. There’s no injury in my brain that suggests that the illness came from boxing.

I was a very shy character, always feeling uncomfortable because everybody was stronger than I, and always afraid I would look like a sissy. Everybody else played baseball; everybody else did all kinds of athletic things.

A lot of guys are able to separate how they act off the court versus how they act on the court.

I had a good time boxing. I enjoyed it – and I may come back.

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.