Jake LaMotta

I made a million, and I lost a million.

You don't compare a guy with 30 or 40 fights with a guy who had 200 fights and fought over 25 years.

Sugar Ray Robinson was the greatest, pound-for-pound, ever. He fought most of his career with just one loss, and that was to me. He had 131 fights with one loss.

I fought from the time I was eight years old, sometimes three, four fights a night. We did it to eat, and we did it because we were just tough kids.

Counting amateur fights, I have over a thousand bouts.

I fought in Detroit 23 times.

Whenever I did have a lot of money, I got in trouble.

Ask most guys what their ambition is, and they'll say they want to get rich. But when they get rich, they discover it's not what they wanted at all. I don't want to be rich.

I've learned a lot about life besides how to take a punch. And I've taken quite a few in and out of the ring.

God's been pretty good to me. He made me duck all those punches that were supposed to land.

There's no pensions for old prize fighters.

There was only one thing I wanted out of life. That was to be the champ.

I ask for personal appearance fees because I've earned them. I deserve them. My presence at events is what they need, so they ought to pay for it.

I'm the Godfather of Boxing. Everything is out in the open with me. What you see is what you get.

When you break bones, they heal up and come back even stronger.

I wanted to get punished, and I took unnecessary punishment when I was fighting.

I never went to church. The priests couldn't scare me with all that crap about hell, but somehow I knew, inside of me somehow, I knew that I'd pay for it.

Cooking's my hobby.

The world knows me as the Raging Bull.

Even when I was hurt, I was always the aggressor, no matter what.

I don't know how to back up.

You can't think about the past anymore.

You have to treat everybody the right way. Otherwise, you'll have a short life. God bless.

I was tough at a very young age, where I was just fighting all the time.

All my life, I wanted to be champion.

When you're No. 1 contender for five years, and you know who's controlling things, you'll do something you're not proud of.

The three toughest fighters I fought were Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Sugar Ray Robinson.

I was a sick animal. I was jealous. I was vicious.

Boxing never hurt me at all.

Punches never bothered me that much.

I was a no-good bastard.

Everybody has a temper, but mine was set on a hair trigger.

I always needed money when I was younger. I had different ways of getting it. A lot of the ways I don't like to talk about.

If I got a beating for something, I usually deserved it.

I wasn't born to be a fighter. My hands are too small, and look at these short arms.

Big money causes me too much trouble with my ex-wives and the government. All I want is to keep busy and to be comfortable.

Fear is unnecessary.

I used to psyche myself out. Only, back then, we didn't know the word 'psyche.'

Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.

There's a lot of people all over the world that talked about me.

My greatest defense was my offense. Very few guys did that.

Besides being a slum kid with no great education in anything except how to fight and stay alive and steal, I also had this temper.

I lost a lot of money, lost my wife and kids.

Most of the time, husbands and wives argue about stupid, foolish things. If it doesn't mean that much to you, give in to your wife.

Lot of guys can take punches. The idea is not to take unnecessary punishment.

When I was a kid, I wanted to fight Joe Louis. But I think if I had seen Mike Tyson at that time, I would have said, 'Nah, I don't want to fight him.' He's deadly. He could have been one of the great heavyweight champions. But he goofed.

People get in auto accidents, they're paralyzed for life. I got hurt worse getting married.

I had such a crazy life. How I got away with it, I don't know.

I fought Sugar Ray Robinson so many times, it's a wonder I don't have diabetes.

My nose was broken six times, my hands six times, a few fractured ribs. Fifty stitches over my eyes. But the only place I got hurt was out of the ring.