Ali Quotes

“Ali was everything everybody wanted their child to be, except some ignorant-ass white folks, and they don’t count”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“I am America,” Clay will proudly declare. “I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“The story of Cassius Clay’s lost bicycle would later be told as an indication of the boxer’s determination and the wonders of accidental encounters, but it carries broader meaning, too. If Cassius Clay had been a white boy, the theft of his bicycle and an introduction to Joe Martin might have led as easily to an interest in a career in law enforcement as boxing. But Cassius, who had already developed a keen understanding of America’s racial striation, knew that law enforcement wasn’t a promising option. This subject—what white America allowed and expected of black people—would intrigue him all his life. “At twelve years old I wanted to be a big celebrity,” he said years later. “I wanted to be world famous.” The interviewer pushed him: Why did he want to be famous? Upon reflection he answered from a more adult perspective: “So that I could rebel and be different from all the rest of them and show everyone behind me that you don’t have to Uncle Tom, you don’t have to kiss you-know-what to make it . . . I wanted to be free. I wanted to say what I wanna say . . . Go where I wanna go. Do what I wanna do.” For young Cassius, what mattered was that boxing was permitted, even encouraged, and that it gave him more or less equal status to the white boys who trained with him. Every day, on his way to the gym, Cassius passed a Cadillac dealership. Boxing wasn’t the only way for him to acquire one of those big, beautiful cars in the showroom window, but it might have seemed that way at the time. Boxing suggested a path to prosperity that did not require reading and writing. It came with the authorization of a white man in Joe Martin. It offered respect, visibility, power, and money. Boxing transcended race in ways that were highly unusual in the 1950s, when black Americans had limited control of their economic and political lives. Boxing more than most other sports allowed black athletes to compete on level ground with white athletes, to openly display their strength and even superiority, and to earn money on a relatively equal scale. As James Baldwin wrote in The Fire Next Time, many black people of Clay’s generation believed that getting an education and saving money would never be enough to earn respect. “One needed a handle, a lever, a means of inspiring fear,” Baldwin wrote. “It was absolutely clear the police would whip you and take you in as long as they could get away with it, and that everyone else—housewives, taxi”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“[Howard] Cosell spoke in a Brooklyn accent, with vowels that got trapped in the back of his nose and consonants that exploded from his mouth with unexpected force and speed. It was a voice that reminded listeners of a trumpet in the hands of a non-trumpeter.”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“one irrepressible folk hero hailed as our favorite defender of the truth and resister of authority,” Budd Schulberg”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“It’s not easy for a rebel to remain a rebel all his life. It’s exhausting”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“the World Boxing Association and the New York State Athletic Commission had suspended Ali’s boxing license and stripped him of his championship title. Soon after, with a unity of spirit, all the other boxing commissions in the country fell into line. Never mind that they had long tolerated the mafia and professional gamblers in their sport. Never mind that Ali had not yet been convicted of a crime.”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“Guided by anger, prejudice, or patriotism, boxing’s rulers decided that Muhammad Ali was unfit to wear the sport’s crown because he was a Muslim who refused to fight for his country.”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“Mildenberger was more nuisance than hazard, like a developing nation trying to make the threats of a superpower.”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“It was all by design, as he said later. Angry fighters don’t think clearly. They don’t stick to their plans. They get frustrated, sloppy. Clay knew that Liston was sensitive about his image, that he yearned for respect, and so Clay worked to deny him that respect. By labeling Liston an ugly bear, Clay was tweaking his opponent’s most sensitive nerve and perhaps using racism to do it,”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“Now, it was the Black Muslim radical against the bully, and it was not at all clear to fight fans which one was less evil. Ambiguity was not the thing sports fans craved.”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“Eventually, Martin persuaded Clay to fly. “But then he went to an army supply store and bought a parachute and actually wore it on the plane”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“When they reached her door, Clay leaned in for a kiss, and Swint closed her eyes to give him one back. Then came a series of loud thudding sounds—and no kiss. When Swint opened her eyes, Clay was lying on the ground at the foot of the stairs in a tangle of long arms and legs. Clay had fainted. From the bottom of the stairs, he looked up sheepishly at Swint. “Ain’t nobody gonna believe this,” he said”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“learning to read rewires the brain. Reading teaches us to block out the world, and in the process certain kinds of visual processing skills get lost. That may be why some dyslexics exhibit exceptional visual talents,”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“Sonny Liston is America’s curse. He is the black menace sprung from white racist stereotypes. And he likes it that way.”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“He loved being loved more than he loved being admired.”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“Ali said he felt a duty to explain Islam to Americans and to explain America to Muslims.”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“Ali’s chances of winning “as remote as Zaire”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“who seemed to have grown his afro to new and previously unexplored heights, inspiring Norman Mailer to write that King looked like a man falling down an elevator shaft, “whoosh went the hair up from his head”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“I’m going to tell you something,” Ali said, “and I don’t want you ever to forget it . . . Black men scare white men more than black men scare black men”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“calling him “a fierce fighter and a man of peace.”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“There is no attempting to comprehend a prizefighter unless we are willing to recognize that he speaks with a command of the body which is as detached, subtle and comprehensive in its intelligence as any exercise of mind by such social engineers as Herman Kahn or Henry Kissinger.”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“For Ali, it was the beginning of a battle to overcome the dyslexia and poor reading skills that had hampered him since childhood.”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“King feared an all-out race war that would end with a right-wing, fascist police state in America.”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“Ali’s stand against Vietnam made him a symbol of protest against a war in which black men were dying at a wildly disproportionate rate”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“You cannot deceive me if I’m not looking for anything from you.”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“They called it “a disgusting exhibition of calculated cruelty,” as if boxing were supposed to be anything else”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“Everyone knew the draft was rigged to protect wealthy white men from service, while the poor and dark-skinned served in disproportionately high numbers, he said”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“who was never seen drunk, a man whose power rested in quiet confidence and calm deliberation”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life

“I just said I’m the greatest; I never said I was the smartest,” he told reporters.”
― Jonathan Eig, Ali: A Life