When you speak to a lot of kids, as I've done over the years, you know what to say, keep them laughing, good illustrations and learn to read.
When it gets to the part in life where you're more afraid of what your wife is going to do to you than if you box, say, Mike Tyson, you've got to get a new profession. You don't get to be a family. I know why boxers never quit, some of them. They don't have wives.
You got to look nice. If you got 10 kids, they'll talk about you if you don't look nice.
Getting up to Zaire - getting ready to fight Muhammad Ali - I thought this will be a matter of just a little exercise. I'll probably knock him out in three rounds. Two, three - maybe three and a half rounds. That was the most confidence I had in my whole life.
All of a sudden, one day, you're this boxer that everybody like, or you're this guy that people pass on the highway and wave at. The next day, you're this guy that everybody want to touch - be in touch with you. Then you think that this is the answer to all things.
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.
Money is a good thing, but every morning you have to get up with something no one else in the world gets up with - that's that image. That face you see in the mirror, you got to love it, and you better do some things that you feel good about inside of you. Of course, money is going to come, but make certain that you do some good with it.
You've got to have a focus. You just fight for money, you get hurt. You focus on the title, you'll just naturally make money doing it.
If you learn to sell, it's worth more than a degree. It's worth more than the heavyweight championship of the world. It's even more important than having a million dollars in the bank. Learn to sell, and you'll never starve.
Every day, getting up early in the morning before much traffic, my wife takes me 10 miles from home, drops me off, and I have to get back.
Sports are sports. Its all about how we carry ourselves out of the ring.
I teach kids that want to be tough that their fists are not the way.
I want to tell everybody that there is really a living God.
I love the UFC. I love it. If they had had that back when I was coming up, in 1966, it would have been my sport. Man, I love it. And you know what? Nobody would have pulled the rope-a-dope on me.
I tell my sons all the time, 'The most important thing in your life is fitness,' but a lot of fighters go overboard.
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.
Anytime I can sneak in a moment to fish and ride horses, I'm a happy camper.
