My family's support and the negative environment of the day toward blacks in South Carolina became the forces that led me out of the South - first to New York, then to Philadelphia, where I found opportunity in the form of a PAL gym and my trainer, Yank Durham.

Joe Frazier

Boxing is the only sport you can get your brain shook, your money took and your name in the undertaker book.

Joe Frazier

Ali even told me in the ring, 'You can't beat me - I'm your Lord.' I just told him, 'Lord, you're in the wrong place tonight.'

Joe Frazier

Life doesn't run away from nobody. Life runs at people.

Joe Frazier

I went to see President Nixon at the White House. It wasn't difficult to get a meeting because I was heavyweight champion of the world. So I came to Washington and walked around the garden with Nixon, his wife and daughter. I said: I want you to give Ali his licence back. I want to beat him up for you.

Joe Frazier

I wasn't a big guy. People thought the big guys would eat me up. But it was the other way around. I loved to fight bigger guys.

Joe Frazier

There are places on a man's head that are as hard as a rock. Your head's actually stronger than your body. And you don't have too many instruments up there workin'. But you got a lot of tools workin' in that body: the liver, the kidneys, the heart, the lungs. You soften that up and see what happens. I lived by the body shot.

Joe Frazier

I don't think a man has to go around shouting and play-acting to prove he is something. And a real man don't go around putting other guys down, trampling their feelings in the dirt, making out they're nothing.

Joe Frazier

I had my Olympic gold medal cut up into eleven pieces. Gave all eleven of my kids a piece. It'll come together again when they put me down.

Joe Frazier

I hated Ali. God might not like me talking that way, but it's in my heart.

Joe Frazier

I don't want to be no more than what I am.

Joe Frazier

I've achieved 'the American dream.' I feel it's my duty to help others achieve their vision, too - especially the youth.

Joe Frazier

When you work for me, you don't say good things about Ali.

Joe Frazier

Trust me. Sometimes God comes down and puts his hand on you if you're too big in your thoughts.

Joe Frazier

When I go out there, I have no pity on my brother. I'm out there to win.

Joe Frazier

When I was a boy, I used to pull a big cross saw with my dad. He'd use his right hand, so I'd have to use my left.

Joe Frazier

I grew up in Beaufort, South Carolina, in a six-room farmhouse with a couple of leaning posts to keep it from fallin'. I came up in a time when men were men.

Joe Frazier

I don't mind people want to think Muhammad is the greatest fighter around. Everybody wants to make him great because of his mouth, that he was the best. He was good, but that doesn't make him great. I proved that.

Joe Frazier

Ali would not be Ali unless I had come along. Him and me had three fights.

Joe Frazier

This is just another man, another fight, another payday.

Joe Frazier

I couldn't go to school with whites. Now there are schools that educate everyone.

Joe Frazier