Ali Quotes

Joe Frazier’s life didn’t start with Ali. I was a Golden Gloves champ. Gold medal in Tokyo ’64. Heavyweight champion of the world long before I fought Ali in the Garden.

I have worked with producers like Saif Ali Khan and Salman Khan, and there have never been any complaints about my late-comings.

As my grandmother Shamshad Begum was a noted classical singer, who had settled down in London, we used to receive several people from the music, film and literature fraternity at home. People like Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Mehboob Khan, Khwaja Ahmed Abbas, K. Asif etc., used to visit us regularly.

It is an honor to join the ranks of sports icons such as Muhammad Ali and Tiger Woods by being immortalized in wax at Madame Tussauds Washington, D.C.

And I remember leaving my place in L.A. and – my father is a big fight fan – and I said, ‘Dad, I got a couple of days off and I’m getting ready to go to Houston to sign to fight Muhammad Ali.

I watched Ali, studied Ali, and I studied Sugar Ray Robinson. I watched them display showmanship. I watched them use pizzazz, personality, and charisma. I took things from them and borrowed things from them because boxing is entertainment.

Ali helped raise black people in this country out of mental slavery. The entire experience of being black changed for millions of people because of Ali.

Bashar al-Assad’s henchmen stomped on the hands of famed Syrian cartoonist Ali Farzat. Our dictators tailor wounds to suit their victims’ occupations.

Dad had four world records, and they happened to be Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Ali Farka Toure. I tried singing like these people, and it didn’t work.

If you’re a person struggling to eat and stay healthy, you might have heard about Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali, but you’ll never have heard of Bill Gates.

My books are often shelved around those of Chinua Achebe and Margaret Atwood, or Chimamanda Adichie and Monica Ali. All of this depends, of course, on the bookstore and how conversant the shelf stocker is with the alphabet.

I love laugh lines. It means you’ve had a good life. The most beautiful women – Audrey Hepburn, Lauren Hutton, Ali MacGraw – all embraced the aging process.

When I look back at the people who were most influential in my life, it wasn’t Kobe Bryant, it wasn’t Michael Jordan, it wasn’t Muhammad Ali. It was regular people who do, like, regular jobs in Ames, Iowa, who had impact. My hero was the secretary in the department of music – my mom.

Muhammad Ali was my idol, and I always say, if Muhammad Ali had told me the exact same thing my mother, the principal, the security guard, my brothers… you know, the same thing they were telling me that I didn’t listen to, I would have listened, just because it came from Muhammad Ali.