Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
Boxing is just show business with blood.
All the time he's boxing, he's thinking. All the time he was thinking, I was hitting him.
I want to keep fighting because it is the only thing that keeps me out of the hamburger joints. If I don't fight, I'll eat this planet.
All fighters are prostitutes and all promoters are pimps.
I have always adhered to two principles. The first one is to train hard and get in the best possible physical condition. The second is to forget all about the other fellow until you face him in the ring and the bell sounds for the fight.
It's the boxers who attract the real women, after all, with their raw primeval strength, beautifully toned bodies and just a touch of vulnerability.
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.