Joe Frazier Quotes

Ali always said I would be nothing without him. But what would he have been without me?

Ali would not be Ali unless I had come along. Him and me had three fights.

Joe Frazier's life didn't start with Ali. I was a Golden Gloves champ. Gold medal in Tokyo '64. Heavyweight champion of the world long before I fought Ali in the Garden.

If I lose, I'll walk away and never feel bad because I did all I could. There was nothing more to do.

Twenty years I've been fighting Ali, and I still want to take him apart piece by piece and send him back to Jesus.

I had my Olympic gold medal cut up into eleven pieces. Gave all eleven of my kids a piece. It'll come together again when they put me down.

I was never, ever once angry in the ring.

There's one thing I don't ever think about: losing ... Instead, I think about how I'm going to win, and how I can do it the quickest way.

There are places on a man's head that are as hard as a rock. Your head's actually stronger than your body. And you don't have too many instruments up there workin'.

Had my own car at twelve years old. Left school in the tenth grade. Married when I was sixteen. Ain't hard to figure out; I was a man at a very young age.

If you cheat in the dark of the morning, you'll get found in the bright lights of the night.

Fightin' George Foreman is like being in the street with an eighteen-wheeler comin' at you.

I hated Ali. God might not like me talking that way, but it's in my heart.

I don't think a man has to go around shouting and play-acting to prove he is something. And a real man don't go around putting other guys down, trampling their feelings in the dirt, making out they're nothing.

You can map out a light plan or a life plan, but when the action starts, it may not go the way you planned, and you're down to the reflexes you developed in training. That's where roadwork shows - the training you did in the dark of the mornin' will show when you're under the bright lights.

Champions aren't made in the ring, they are merely recognized there. What you cheat on in the early light of morning will show up in the ring under the bright lights.

I went to see President Nixon at the White House. It wasn't difficult to get a meeting because I was heavyweight champion of the world. So I came to Washington and walked around the garden with Nixon, his wife and daughter. I said: I want you to give Ali his licence back. I want to beat him up for you.

The way I fight, it's not me beatin' the man. I make the man whip himself.

I had a job to do in the ring, and the businessmen around me had a job to do outside the ring, I did my job by beating up most of the guys they put in front of me and staying in shape, but the people I trusted didn't do their jobs.

I loved fighting ... It gave me the opportunity to prove myself, to stand up and say, 'I'm the best. I matter. I am.'

Preaching don't mean you are a true man. You got to go out and do.

I hit him with body shots that would have brought down cities.

My family's support and the negative environment of the day toward blacks in South Carolina became the forces that led me out of the South - first to New York, then to Philadelphia, where I found opportunity in the form of a PAL gym and my trainer, Yank Durham.

Trust me. Sometimes God comes down and puts his hand on you if you're too big in your thoughts.

I don't want nothing comin' at me that I can't stop.

My mom allowed me to take an old burlap bag and fill it with moss, corn stalks and rocks, then hang it from a tree and spend an hour a day punching my heavy bag.

I wasn't a big guy. People thought the big guys would eat me up. But it was the other way around. I loved to fight bigger guys.

Since I was a boy of five or six, I had it in my mind I would be a world boxing champion.

Fighting George Foreman is like being in the street with an 18-wheeler coming at you.

Ali even told me in the ring, 'You can't beat me - I'm your Lord.' I just told him, 'Lord, you're in the wrong place tonight.'

The boxing game has been good, so we need to give back. We have to teach young men how to be men.

Work is the only meanin' I've ever known.

I've achieved 'the American dream.' I feel it's my duty to help others achieve their vision, too - especially the youth.

When I go out there, I have no pity on my brother. I'm out there to win.

I don't want to be no more than what I am.

It was all about the ring. That's where you got your brains shook and the money took.

Ali kept calling me ugly, but I never thought of myself as being any uglier than him, I have 11 babies, somebody thought I was cute.

I couldn't go to school with whites. Now there are schools that educate everyone.

This is just another man, another fight, another payday.

I got a burlap sack, put a brick in the middle, and filled it with rags, corncobs, some Spanish moss, and sand. I hung that sack off the branch of an oak tree. I'd wrap my hands with a necktie of my daddy's and punch at it. My mom gave me an hour a day. My brothers and sisters said, "Nah." I said, "You'll see."

Courage is how bad you want it.