To kids, I’ve always been more than just some big tough black guy. I train to be tough – I box and do karate – but underneath all that toughness is a tender man.

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.

I’m in the game of spinning plates. I’m spinning a boxing plate. I’m spinning a Tae Kwon Do plate. I’m spinning a Jujitsu plate. I’m spinning a freestyle wrestling plate. I’m spinning a karate plate. If I was to put all them down and have one boxing plate spinning, it would be like a load off my shoulders.

I will fight in many weight divisions.

I think sometimes the best training is to rest.

Funk, I don’t think I have anything to do with funk. I’ve never considered myself funky.

I always was a Christian… whatsoever a man thinks in his heart is who he is.

People can try to reinvent themselves. I don’t think you can really change who you are, though, because who you are is pretty much where you came from and what you’ve done up to now.

I do sometimes look back at things I’ve written in the past, and think, ‚I just don’t remember being the person who wrote that.‘

I think who you are in school really sticks with you. I don’t ever feel like the cool kid at the party, ever. It’s like, ‚Smile and be nice to everybody, because you were not invited to be here.‘

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

You don’t go to Notre Dame to learn something; you go to Notre Dame to be somebody.

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.

I convened the first-ever national training conference for prosecutors on how to promote and deal with hate crime issues in terms of prosecutions and also protocol for defeating the gay panic defense.

I’m Mickey Mouse. They don’t know who’s inside the suit.

Nobody has ever convinced me that race is real.

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.

My affection for Taiwan… is witnessed by everyone. My wife is Taiwanese and I am a son-in-law of Taiwan. I am half Taiwanese.

Through my films I’m eventually trying to one day tell the truth. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get there, but I’m slowly letting pieces of myself out there and then maybe by the time I’m 85, I’ll look back and say, ‚All right, that about sums it up.‘

I have a deep, deep belief that if I tell you I’m going to crack you with a clean shot to the chin inside one minute of the first round and you will be unconscious, well, then that’s what will happen.

I think being an atheist is something you are, not something you do.

I think any man who lets a woman pick what he should wear… I mean, you gotta draw the line somewhere as a man. I see these guys, ‚My wife told me to wear this!‘ And I just shake my head.

One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.

In the ’60s and ’70s and early ’80s, the trainers would grind you, and eventually they would break something – they would break an ankle in ways that it would heal. It was just the way of the business, to ensure that you learned respect for wrestling.

We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.

I’ve always felt quite singular, even as a child. That I must stay on track to keep my purpose.

If somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give ‚em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.

I saw a picture of myself when I came out of the hospital. I didn’t recognize myself.

The mixed martial arts way of life will give you focus.

It’s all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you’re properly trained.

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

I don’t look at myself as a commodity, but I’m sure a lot of people have.

Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is.

At 50, I began to know who I was. It was like waking up to myself.

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

What is normal? Normal was yesterday. If you lose a leg, one day you’re hopping around on one leg, so you know the difference.

An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.

If you’re always under the pressure of real identity, I think that is somewhat of a burden.

I don’t know what ‚normal‘ means, anyway.

To the women and children, T stands for tender. To the bad guys and thugs, it stands for tough.

For different roles, my condition and training and diet does alter. Depending on the role, it will really dictate the type of training I do.

Everyone, no doubt, remains first and foremost a man of his own country and continues to draw from it his motive force.

I’ve always had a problem with the average macho man – they’ve always been a threat to me.

I don’t blame the average seventeen-year-old punk-rock kid for calling me a sellout. I understand that. And maybe when they grow up a little bit, they’ll realize there’s more things to life than living out your rock & roll identity so righteously.

Everyone needs a coach. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player.

Training gives us an outlet for suppressed energies created by stress and thus tones the spirit just as exercise conditions the body.

If you have religious faith, very good, you can add on secular ethics, then religious belief, add on it, very good. But even those people who have no interest about religion, okay, it’s not religion, but you can train through education.

‚I’ll be back‘ always sounded a little girly to me.

I feel Anglo-American.

Learning to live for others isn’t something that just comes naturally to anybody. You have to train yourself to do it.

I made a decision when my father passed away that I was going to be who God made me to be and not try to preach like my father.

I definitely feel closer to the feminine side of the human being than I do the male – or the American idea of what a male is supposed to be. Just watch a beer commercial and you’ll see what I mean.

What I can say is that all my characters are searching for their souls, because they are my mirrors. I’m someone who is constantly trying to understand my place in the world, and literature is the best way that I found in order to see myself.

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

I’m already the face of the UFC, plus the face of boxing, WWE, and Hollywood.

I think it’s important as an artist to never forget where you’re from.

I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‚Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.‘

At twelve I looked like a girl of seventeen. My body was developed and shapely. I still wore the blue dress and the blouse the orphanage provided. They made me look like an overgrown lummox.

Lady Gaga is my name. If you know me, and you call me Stefani, you don’t really know me at all.

Only Americans can hurt America.

Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never allow himself.