"Sometimes it seems like a bad trade, but bad trades are part of baseball. Now who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, for God's sake! It's a long season, and you gotta trust it."

"It's in the black players and it remains there. The National League was the first to sign black players and remained ahead all these years. And so many outstanding players are black that it's hard to have an outstanding team without your share of black players. It seemed like the National League teams were willing to sign any promising prospect regardless of color, while the American League was only interested in the outstanding, can't-miss black prospect. And if you don't sign the raw talent that needs a few years to develop, you lose out on some outstanding players."

"It was nothing personal at all. Robinson is not a young 30. If he had been 26, we might not have traded him."

"It worked out just right. I've had to try to catch Aaron virtually all my career. But he's the home run king, so that means he's the cleanup hitter. That means I got into the Hall of Fame before he did."

"My lifestyle is pretty minimal. Just doing my part to make the planet a better place."

"When I turned 15 or 16 I realized that I did not have to eat meat, so I stopped. I went Vegan the same year I got in to bike racing: 1999. I was living in San Francisco and started racing on the track and lived with a bunch of vegans. To be honest, I never really liked eating animal products. It was just always in stuff I would eat. Y'know: burritos have cheese, pizza has cheese. But once I was surrounded by people who showed me that there were options, I stopped eating animal products right away. I was really motivated to start taking responsibility for what I put in my body."

"I run upright mostly when I see daylight, so if you watch film you'll see I don't get hit in the chest much."

"When they have their hands on their knees, that's when they're tired. If I get the ball enough times, something’s going to give – me or the defense."

"When the legislature convened for its first session in 1913, the Democrats signalized their victory by immediately offering several bills against the Negro. Jack Johnson, champion a few years before, was then in the high tide of his prosperity. He was already married to a white woman, and it seems that in his theatrical engagements which followed after his victory he was accompanied by another white woman who had fallen under his spell. Seeing their chance to get even, racially prejudiced persons brought a charge against him under the Mann Act. He was accused of transporting the woman in the case into the different states where he gave shows. Before this happened, however, he had opened a saloon on Thirty-first Street called the Cafe DeChampion. This place became the resort of the kings and queens of the pugilistic world, and while the common people were served on the first floor, the leading sports and their lady friends of the white race were entertained upstairs, with Jack Johnson as the bright particular star. I was publishing a little paper called the Fellowship Herald at that time and my comment on the opening of this saloon with its "gold" cuspidors was that "what Mr. Johnson should have done with his money was to open a gymnasium in which the colored boys would have the chance to develop themselves physically. He, better than anyone else, knew under what difficulties he had succeeded in getting his training. He also knew that even as champion, the owner of the white gymnasium in the city felt that they were doing him a favor to allow him to give exhibitions therein."...Instead Mr. Johnson chose to open a saloon to cater to the worst passions of both races. When he was not on the road, he spent most of his time there, entertaining the wildest of the underworld of both sexes and especially of the white race. His neglect of his white wife was so marked that she committed suicide during this time. Very soon thereafter came his arrest and imprisonment. When he was found guilty and sentenced to the penitentiary he did a fade away and was gone two or three years in other lands, but ultimately had to come back and do his time in the government prison at Leavenworth...It was shortly after these occurrences that the Illinois legislature convened, and among the first bills offered were four against intermarriage between races. It was clearly stated that these were the aftermath of the Jack Johnson episode."

"The search for the "white hope" not having been successful, prejudices were being piled up against me, and certain unfair persons, piqued because I was champion, decided if they could not get me one way they would another."

"There have been countless women in my life. They have participated in my triumphs and suffered with me in my moments of disappointment. They have inspired me to attainment and they have balked me; they have caused me joy and they have heaped misery upon me; they have been faithful to the utmost and they have been faithless; they have praised and loved me and they have hated and denounced me. Always, a woman has swayed me — sometimes many have demanded my attention at the same moment."

"You know, boy, the heavyweight division for a Negro is hardly likely. The white man ain't too keen on it. You have to be something to go anywhere. If you really ain't gonna be another Jack Johnson, you got some hope. White man hasn't forgotten that fool nigger with his white women, acting like he owned the world."

"I don't even think about a retirement program because I'm working for the Lord, for the Almighty. And even thought the Lord's pay isn't very high, his retirement program is, you might say, out of this world."

"I've seen George Foreman shadow boxing and the shadow won!"

"My life is much more than boxing — I've been knocked out more outside the ring than in the ring."

"In boxing, I had a lot of fear. Fear was good. But, for the first time, in the bout with Muhammad Ali, I didn't have any fear. I thought, "This is easy. This is what I've been waiting for." No fear at all. No nervousness. And I lost."

"It was like fighting a billy-goat, butt and run. I was saved by the jab. No jab and we would have lost it."

"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."