When We Were Kings (1996)

Muhammad Ali: Self

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Quotes 

• Muhammad Ali : It is befitting that I leave the game just like I came in, beating a big bad monster who knocks out everybody and no one can whup him. That's when little Cassius Clay from Louisville, Kentucky, came up to stop Sonny Liston. The man who annihilated Floyd Patterson twice. HE WAS GONNA KILL ME! But he hit harder than George. His reach is longer than George's. He's a better boxer than George. And I'm better now than I was when you saw that 22-years old undeveloped kid running from Sonny Liston. I'm experienced now, professional. Jaws been broke, been knocked down a couple of times, I'm bad! Been chopping trees. I done something new for this fight. I done wrestled with an alligator. That's right. I have wrestled with an alligator. I done tussled with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail. That's bad! Only last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalised a brick! I'm so mean I make medicine sick!

  Don King : Bad dude!

  Muhammad Ali : Bad, fast! Fast! Fast! Last night I cut the light off in my bedroom, hit the switch and was in the bed before the room was dark.

• Muhammad Ali : I'm young, I'm handsome, I'm fast, I'm pretty and can't possibly be beat.

• [Responding to Howard Cosell] 

  Muhammad Ali : And you're always talking about, "Muhammad, you're not the same man you were 10 years ago." Well, I asked your wife, and she told me you're not the same man you was two years ago!

• [Responding to Howard Cosell] 

  Muhammad Ali : I'm gonna let everybody know that that thing you got on your head is a phony, and it comes from the tail of a pony!

• Muhammad Ali : Flying over the Sahara desert. African Airlines, with all African stewardesses, all African pilots. Boy, this is the first free feeling I ever had in a long time. Ain't this something, flying in an airplane with all black pilots, all black crew. This is strange to the American negro. We never dreamed of this. And every time we watch television, they show us Tarzan and the natives and the jungles. They never told us that Africans were more intelligent than we are. They speak English. They speak English, French and African. We can't even speak English good.

• [first lines] 

  Muhammad Ali : Yeah, I'm from Africa. Yeah, Africa's my home. Damn America and what America thinks. Yeah, I live in America; but, Africa's the home of the black man. And I was a slave 400 years ago and I'm going back home to fight among my brothers. Yeah!

• Muhammad Ali : If you think the world was surprised when Nixon resigned, wait till I kick Foreman's behind.

• Muhammad Ali : People do say I'm cocky. Some say I need a good whoopin'. Some say I talk too much. But, anything that I say I'm willing to back up.

• Muhammad Ali : Yeah, when I get to Africa, we gonna get it on, because we don't get along. I wanna eat him up! Too much speed, boy. Too fast! Too fast! That's right! I'm gonna retire the heavy weight champion of the world. I'm gonna retire the heavy weight champion of the world. September the 25th, the world will be stunned!

• Muhammad Ali : I'm the greatest. And I'm knockin' out all bums. And if you get too small, I'll knock you out.

• Muhammad Ali : This chump has got everybody scared. Scared of what? There's nothin' to be scared of. Scared of what?

• Muhammad Ali : I gotta whoop George. I gotta whoop George. We gonna rumble in the jungle.

• Muhammad Ali : I'm a speed demon. I'm a brain fighter. I'm fightistic. I'm artistic. I plan my strategy. He's a bull. I'm a matador. He's scared to death. He's scared to death! He wish he could get out of the whole thing. He wish he could get out of the whole thing. If I look at it. The man is frightened. He's meetin' his master. His teacher. His idol!

• Muhammad Ali : The music I listen to now, if I went to your house or most white people's places, I don't hear this kind of music. Because your culture wasn't - you're woman didn't leave you, you're woman didn't go out and slip off on you like our woman, because, you didn't have no money. You had money to keep your woman. Your songs are like: Hear that train comes around that mountain, And the Fulsom Prison, And the Fulsom Prison, And, you know, You all come, You all come. Whatever it is. Different cultures - Chinese got their own music: Ting-Ting-Tang-Tong. Ting-Tong. I don't wanna hear that. And he understands that music. Everybody's got their culture. So, we're not sayin' we hate you or we want to be more that matters and we're never talkin' to you again or doin' business. We don't do that. But, what we're sayin' is that we want to be independent now.

• Muhammad Ali : Sucka, you ain't nothin'. You too ugly - to represent us colored folks.. These Africans - they make all of us ugly. Sucka, look at you. You out, sucka.

• Muhammad Ali : I'm gonna go play me some soul music, man. The Spinners and James Brown.

• Muhammad Ali : I have a lot of things to do when I stop fightin', in the black neighborhoods. We have a lot of problems. A lot of problems we have to solve among ourselves. Prostitution problems. Dope problems. Gang fight problems. Knowledge of self. The black people don't have no knowledge of themselves. We have been made just like white people mentally. And white people have made us so much like them, until it's hard to teach 'em anything about themselves. It's hard to teach 'em to unite and marry and be with their own. Because, they're now like white people. Black people are now like white people. They've been so brainwashed that we have to re-brainwash 'em now and teach 'em more about themselves and their own history, their own names, their own language. To respect and protect their own women. Do something for themselves and quit always beggin' white people for things they should do for themselves.