Bernard Hopkins Quotations

I'm lining up my troops to go to battle with. Tarver is the man at light heavyweight. He has the credibility of the fans and media, and that's what counts. That's why I am taking this risk, but I am taking it by preparing myself with good people.

I've done so many unpredictable things and so profoundly. Even the people who want to go against me, are afraid to go against me. They've been wrong so many times. A lot of them are just being mum right now. They must feel I can still do things.

I got knocked down. Anybody could be knocked down, anybody can be knocked out, but it's not what happened, but what happens next.

I was knocking guys out in the streets before I knew how to throw a jab and keep your chin down, In most neighbourhoods, the guy that could fight gets respect. You got in the parties free. I never had to pay the dollar because people were scared of me. But back then I was ignorant.

Understand that I'm at my best when it comes to proving a point, not only to show that I'm a better fighter and a better athlete at 40½ years old, but I'm at my best when I know I've got to beat the system again.

I still shop at Costco. I just started tipping two years ago.

Boxers are resilitant guys. We know how to take of a big punch that hits us, we know how to survive. Oscar is a survivor, he's gonna be back bigger and stronger.

I like Sergio Martinez. I think he's strong, he's gritty, he's got plenty of heart, he's not the fanciest guy you might have seen in boxing but he has the goods to be around a long time in the Middleweight division.

You’re hated by some, loved by others, but that’s what’s great about being different. If everybody loved you, that means you’re not doing the right thing most of the time.

I've got a history of frustrating guys and making them angry.

I always not only want push the envelope in my career but I also have an itch for going against the grain.

Tavoris Cloud might actually be hungrier than me. How often do you hear a fighter say that his opponent is hungrier than he is? I don't need hunger. I'm motivated by my desire to prove that I'm different and that I can still silence the critics.

You're not going to see a new Bernard Hopkins. I'm too old for that crap. I think what you will see is something different that I know I am capable of doing.

You think it's hard for me when I go in the ring and fight? That's the least of my problems. I think about the five years that I did in prison. I think about the nine years on parole. Nothing - nothing! - can compare to that struggle. I'm telling you, from being an ex-convict with 30 convictions, a degree nowhere to be found and black? I'm done.

There's always a chance you will see something new in a fight. Especially in boxing.

I have the philosophy that I'm different. I have the body, the well-being and the experience. Now the teacher gets to show the student that he's worthy of the lesson. Let me show him through experience.

The controversy was that Chad Dawson thought he was in an MMA fight and not a boxing match.

Anybody who thinks I'm taking this fight for a paycheck doesn't know me. My whole life I've been achieving the impossible.

I really didn't care. I'd do something to somebody and walk in front of them the next day like it never happened. I had very very low value on my own life.

The streets was basically my parents.

The middleweight division is one of the most exciting divisions in the sport. Fighters can punch like heavyweights and have the speed of the lightweights. You have the best of world worlds.

The powers that be don’t want athletes or boxers to become as smart as they are.

I'd rather be an adviser. I don't wanna become a trainer because I think with the knowledge and the business sense that I've accomplished through my career and have credibility, why would I reduce myself down to being in a gym with a bunch of training which is not a bad thing to give advice, but I can do that with a suit and tie on and also be there when the cheques are written. I don't wanna be there when the cheques are handed down from 3 or 4 people's hands and then it hits mine as a trainer because 9/10 times, deductions have come out of that.

The NBA has a voice that's why they have a lockout. The NFL has a voice that's why they had a lockout. Boxing is the only sport that's individually represented the individual people - Managers, Promoters and Boxers.

I was told I would be back in 90 days. If I listened to people, I would be back where I came from - the penitentiary.

I wouldn't wanna fight me, because I know it wouldn't be a good outcome for both.

If I'm in a situation where Duane Ford is one of the judges, I have to pick it up.

This fight isn't about boxing, it's something deeper than that.

I was made to be where I'm at. I just had to go through some challenges, so that I can educate others later.

I don't know what being a 48-year-old feels like. There are a lot of 48 year olds that aren't in good shape. The pharmacy is making a killing off of them.

This is a great position to be in. I don't really believe there is any fighter, in any decade that can be in my position of luxury that I've been in for many years.

I function better when my back is to the wall.

Smokey Wilson was like my Gandhi. If I had run into somebody else in prison, with a different set of values, the world might have never known one of the greatest boxing talents ever to come out of Philadelphia.

I must destroy everybody that comes in front of me. I must execute them and I must do it in grand style. I must slay Robert Allen like I must slay De La Hoya or anybody else that steps in that ring.

It takes a very very strong individual not to be corrupt in any of those things as time moves on. Myself and other people who went that road and experienced that world, some got a second birth of life and some is in the dirt.

Early on in my career I had the kind of anxious where you couldn't sleep at night. That anxiousness is like a virus we all have in us. Some you can deal with but some will wipe you out.

When you have somebody that's smart and you're not so smart, to me that's modern day slavery because you're being dictated to.

I am going in there to win this fight. I don't think people are taking me seriously. I'm gonna surprise a lot of people. This guy helped two people make history.

The Pavlik fight was the first time I heard the masses put the word knockout attached to my opponent. I'm real keen on what people say. Ninety percent of it might be garbage, but something in there might be the plan. That woke me up and I knew I wanted to destroy.

The only thing I can do is be right about what I say. Because I know I'm being watched. I understand what I'm facing. All I can do is put the work behind it.

I didn't need to take any fight for the last 10 years. But I've always fought the best and I've always wanted to prove myself to the best.

There are so many things I've done that the world of boxing has witnessed. It's going to be difficult for the boxing people to pick one of my performances as the best.

I want to be the poster child for taking care of yourself after 40. Obesity is an epidemic in this country and I'm a living, breathing example of what it means to stay healthy.

Did you hear what this idiot just said!? He said it's not about the W...It's everything about the W with me!

The media here know that there's the possibility that I can pull this off. I'm confident. Confidence comes with work. When you prepare yourself and you know you're going into combat with all of your bullets, you have the confidence to go into battle.

I'm 100 percent clean. I'm doing this off of nuts and bananas.

The only way you can get experience is from the clock. Time works with some people and against some people. Fortunately, the clock has worked in my favor.

Enjoy that you can see me now. I would love to see the great Michael Jordan and Julius Erving in their younger days, but they're gone. Look at me at 50, I'm going to eat right and live right so I can take less punches and look normal.

There's no great person that lived that didn't go through scrutiny or ridicule and prosecution in all types of ways, to be who they are in history.

I'm not going to give up. If you pay attention to my plan and the way I live and the way I eat, then you have a chance to extend your life a few more years.

I would never let a white boy beat me. You can print that. I would never lose to a white person.

You've got to be willing to look at a guy's face and say I will kill you if I have to. You've got to be willing to look in his face and say that I will stab you, I will hurt you and you can't talk the game, you've got to really act and do the game. Prison is a thing where talking gets you killed. What gets you respect is you do. The guy that you fear is a guy that says nothing.

I am an old man, I just happen to be an old man that can fight.

If you don't know your own value, somebody will tell you your value, and it'll be less than you're worth.

It takes no effort to be ordinary. Ordinary is not even a challenge. You can do nothing and be ordinary.

I wouldn't take any fight or do anything that I think I can't win.

I felt a sense of urgency, ... I wasn't sure if I was winning or not.

He came to fight, ... He didn't come to run or look for a gift from the judges.

There is no better way to introduce our company to the area than to have a Philadelphia fighter like Demetrius represent us.

John said he was there for me and that he could tell me a lot about Tarver. I said, 'Are you serious?' He said he would even get in the ring with me and spar some if I wanted. He said he could still go 15 rounds. He was one of my defenses and he could have had an attitude about it, but he respects my longevity in the game. He understands because we trained so hard in the gym together all those years.

That's the only thing that I say to myself that I need to work on.

Bernard Hopkins, tonight, around the world and, I think, in person - one month shy of being 41 - put on a 12-round exhibition. I don't have to be ashamed of what happened tonight. Just to be competitive respectfully at this level, I believe, that y'all will respect me for my performance tonight.

Everything rides on Dec. 3. This fight is important because that's where Bernard Hopkins will show that anyone who went through the minefield again with him is in trouble. I've beaten everyone who got into the ring with me a second time, and some of them I sent into retirement. I have to deal with the clouds and the storm. You think you got me down and I rise up.

The thing that most people don't understand is that I don't believe I lost the last two fights, which is why I am coming in a confident fighter. Tarver says I am fighting him for one more payday, but what Tarver don't realize is that I could have picked anyone to fight and still gone out making millions of dollars. But I chose to fight Antonio Tarver because, like I have said many times, I want to do what my boxing idol, Sugar Ray Robinson, couldn't do, and that's win the light heavyweight championship.

As a promoter representing a fighter, who in this case is myself, I knew I was doing the right thing by filing this appeal. And for the oldest sanctioning body in boxing to support my case, after reviewing the tape themselves, speaks for itself. I am very happy with the decision.

It's going to be a challenge, I understand that. But I don't fear it.

I want to see him get that world championship belt before this year is out.

I'm lining up my troops to go to battle with.

I'll be in New York Monday to talk about that with HBO. Then you can stick a fork in me. I have one fight left in me.

I didn't expect right after July 16th to be more in demand and more respected everywhere I went, from the West coast to the East coast, from hard-core gang members to corporate people with suits and ties on, black and white. It just secured everything for me. I've been on a nonstop crusade since July 16th. I haven't had much time for family time, based on the outpouring of love and respect they have for Bernard Hopkins.

I didn't know Mackie, but thank God I've got a great publicist who knew him from the Bowe days. His track record speaks for itself. The work he did with fighters like Michael Spinks and Roy Jones and Riddick Bowe helped them win. If anyone could get Bowe in shape, that's credibility.

Come Sunday morning, somebody's going to be asked questions (like) 'What happened?' ... And guess what? I don't want to be that person. So I'm going to do my best, by any means legally and clean, to let Howard Eastman know (what went wrong).

This is my last fight of meaningful significance, ... This is my last fight, outside and in the ring, for what I've always stood up for.