To have any doubt in your body is the biggest weakness an athlete can have. There are times when I physically can't get myself to go for a skill because I'm thinking, 'My knee hurts really bad.'
I asked my kids, 'Do you know what Papa used to do.' They said, 'You were a boxer, you won the Olympics!' And that's what they know.
I went through real darkness, but the ring was my light. That was the one place I felt safe. I could control what happened in the ring. My heart turned icy.
People try to live vicariously through fighters, but it's one-on-one; it's primal. There's no other feeling like it. The problem for me was accepting it - that nothing compares to being champ.
One of the thrills of playing at the top tennis centres of the world is to see the Indian flag go up whenever I'm participating in these events. That's enough motivation for any Indian who has the opportunity to perform at these tournaments.
As I came to the lime light, the media asked me many questions. A lot many moral policing... 'Wear this, wear that, why a T-shirt?' Everybody has the right to form their opinions, and I have the right to ignore them.
In the NBA, you can't run from guys. I think a lot of teams were surprised by my interviews, how nice and well-spoken I am as a player and as a person. I'm a guy who wants to learn.
The rate of childhood obesity is just ridiculous. Anytime I can get involved with teaching them how to get physical exercise, I want to help in any way possible.
We've been playing ugly. Without all of our bodies, we've been kicking it all over the shop, but fortunately we've been able to make the big buckets and rely on our defense for once.
A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more.
Ever since Mike Tyson was champ, twenty-something dudes have microwaved nachos, popped opened Natty Lights, watched sharks do unspeakable things on TV, and whispered a billion 'Whoa, dudes.'
I slice up a ton of cucumbers, celery, carrots and red and yellow peppers. Keep them in your fridge so you always have something handy to curb your snack attack.
Protein is important and hard for me to get in a hurry. We're busy. I don't always remember to thaw the chicken for dinner. I always have eggs, and they're light and satisfying. I never feel stuffed at the end of it.
I'm not really concerned with portraying this tough warrior - I mean, that's part of my job and I take that very seriously. But I don't have anything to hide, and I'm not concerned with what people think.
I think that at the start of a game, you're always playing to win, and then maybe if you're ahead late in the game, you start playing not to lose. The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win.
So many guys are so conservative with their hair, and I always joke with all my buddies when they mess with me, and I'll say, 'That's right, keep the same haircut for ten years.' How fun is that?
I see so many guys, really athletic guys, wearing pleats and I just shake my head. Like, Tiger Woods used to wear pleated pants! I'm like, 'C'mon, Tiger!'
I wanted to be a writer from my early teenage years, but I never told anyone. Writers, in my opinion, were god-like creatures, and to say I was striving to be a writer would be incredibly arrogant.
I'm tall with broad shoulders. And my waist is small. I'm into fashion, so I like the way clothes lay on me. I'm pretty much a normal person's size, just stretched out.
I really enjoy the iPad because you can multi-task: I can watch a movie, read, look at pictures that I shot - because I'm into photography. It serves a lot of purposes for me.
A lot of kids do not know my club exists yet. I did not do any big advertising, and that's what I might do in the next two or three weeks, put something in the paper.
