A biography for Bernard Hopkinshasn’t been written yet.
“When you get to a certain age in society, they want to dictate to you when you should pack it in and that you should mentally grab a cane, a box of Depends, Geritol, listen to the oldies, and not eat spicy food after 9 o'clock.”
“I saw worse stuff inside prison than I ever saw in the streets.”
“UFC is street fighting in a cage. Boxing is a controlled, skilled talent. There's no comparison.”
“I have to be smarter than my opponents. I have to figure out their styles in the ring. I have to be three or four steps ahead of them. So my mind has to be sharp.”
“I feel like I was blacklisted in 1965.”
“I have already bent time to my will.”
“My whole career, I got a lot of credit for not taking punches.”
“To me, you can be young in your mind, in the way you think, but if your body don't come with that, then it's wishful thinking.”
“Money is great, but history is something that you can never get rid of and act like it didn't happen.”
“I am a proud man and never takes things for granted in my life.”
“Boxing should not let - we should not let - the people in business of boxing should not let a person to just walk right in and get the grand prize of boxing. You can't do it in basketball, football, hockey.”
“Being able to do what I do in the ring and out of the ring is evidence that I'm not from this world.”
“I'm special, in a way that is good. I don't have to explain 'special.' There is no definition for special. Special speaks for itself.”
“Most people remember the ending of the book more than the beginning and the middle.”
“I understand and I don't understand human beings.”
“I think I got the ability to speak the truth, and that gets in peoples' heads.”
“You look at De La Hoya, and you think that he is an actor or a singer. I'd like to rearrange a couple of things on his face so the pretty boy becomes just another boxer.”
“If I can create an atmosphere to make my job easier and your confidence less, why not?”
“Age is not an enemy to me.”
“Age is not a problem. It becomes a problem when people try and make us think old.”