I got it made the rest of my life, financially and in every other way. There's nobody in the world like me. I'm getting out just in time. If I was twenty seven, I could still kick ass. I don't have to beat Holmes. Why? I raised him, he worked three years as a sparring partner for me.
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
Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.
Emmett Till and I were about the same age. A week after he was murdered... I stood on a corner with a gang of boys, looking at pictures of him in the black newspapers and magazines. In one, he was laughing and happy. In the other, his head was swollen and bashed in, his eyes bulging out of their sockets, and his mouth twisted and broken... I couldn't get Emmett Till out of my mind, until one evening I thought of a way to get back at white people for his death.
Fifteen referees. I want fifteen referees to be at this fight because there ain't no one man who can keep up with the pace I'm gonna set except me. There's not a man alive who can whup me. I'm too fast. I'm too smart. I'm too pretty. I should be a postage stamp. That's the only way I'll ever get licked.
Elijah Muhammad teaches us the truth of God beautified the planet by separating everybody in different countries for themselves: Chinese in China, English in England, Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico, Ethiopians in Ethiopia, Arabians in Arabia, Egyptians in Egypt, and Americans took that country and stole it away so there's always going to be trouble and chaos.
I've never really resented hard work because I've always liked it. Up every morning for roadwork. Going to the gymnasium every day at 12 o'clock. I never change my pattern.
When I was a kid I got mad enough to want to kill somebody but as you travel the world and I'm struggling with a freedom fight against nations, you can't get enough hate in you to be mad at one man just because it's a boxing match. Never. Even Floyd Paterson, who condemned my Islamic religion and didn't want to call me Muhammad Ali and said I should've gone to the army and I should be in jail.
Fighting by itself doesn't interest me anymore. I want to help people, the black people and I need any kind of media to spread my thought: God, charity, peace.
The word had spread and people were piling around us. But then very suddenly, Sonny Liston froze me with that look of his. He said real quiet, 'Let's go on over here.' And he led the way to a table and the people hung back. I ain't going to lie. This was the only time since I have known Sonny Liston that he really scared me.