‘It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.’
‘Live every day like it’s your last because someday you’re going to be right.’
‘A man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted thirty years of his life.’
‘I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale, handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick. I’m so mean I make medicine sick.’ – Ali said this before the historic Rumble in the Jungle match that took place in 1974 in Zaire against George Foreman.
‘I am so fast that last night I turned off the light switch and was in bed before the room was dark.’
‘Boxing is a lot of white men watching two black men beating each other up.’
‘Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn’t choose it, and I didn’t want it. I am Muhammad Ali, a free name, and I insist people using it when speaking to me and of me.’
