Liston Quotes & Sayings

I saw that streak in him when he told me, 'Get the hell out of here or I'll wipe you out., I got the hell out of there, Liston really scared me. — Muhammad Ali

'Men die of the diseases which they have studied most,' remarked the surgeon, snipping off the end of a cigar with all his professional neatness and finish. 'It's as if the morbid condition was an evil creature which, when it found itself closely hunted, flew at the throat of its pursuer. If you worry the microbes too much they may worry you. I've seen cases of it, and not necessarily in microbic diseases either. There was, of course, the well-known instance of Liston and the aneurism; and a dozen others that I could mention.' — Arthur Conan Doyle

I love poetry, be it in music or be it in Andrei Tarkovsky, Francesca Woodman or anyone else, I just love poetry. — Graciela Iturbide

Liston is like most big bullies, if you can stay away and make him miss for a few rounds he'll get frustrated. Once you strip away that feeling of invincibility, he can be had. — Rocky Marciano

May God always keep us this way
In peace, love and affection. — Cesaria Evora

If they ever let me in the ring with him [Cassius Clay], I'm liable to be put away for murder. — Sonny Liston

Sonny Liston stood up to me and actually made me give ground. No one has ever done that to me before or since. — George Foreman

If I said I would knock out Sonny Liston in 1 minute and 49 seconds of the first round, that would hurt the gate. — Muhammad Ali

Newspapermen ask dumb questions. They look up at the sun and ask if it is shining. — Sonny Liston

Sonny Liston is nothing. The man can't talk. The man can't fight. The man needs talking lessons. The man needs boxing lessons. And since he's gonna fight me, he needs falling lessons. — Muhammad Ali

At the hangars, each jumpmaster was given two packs of papers, containing an order of the day from Eisenhower and a message from Colonel Sink, to pass around to the men. "Tonight is the night of nights," said Sink's. "May God be with — Stephen E. Ambrose

How would you like to find out how good my right is? — Sonny Liston

There is no saint here. I have attained wisdom from life's experiences... the positive, the negative, the destructive, the nourishing. I have been medicine and I have been poison. I've learned a lot about heaven from aligning with angels and I learned a lot about hell from acting like a devil. I offer my scars... what you call "wisdom"... as insight I have gathered from my comfort of living within both the light and the shadow. — Steve Maraboli

When I beat Sonny Liston, I shocked the world. When I joined the Muslims, I shocked the world. When I beat George Forman, I shocked the world. I am from the House of Shock — Muhammad Ali

A boxing match is like a cowboy movie. There's got to be good guys and there's got to be bad guys. And that's what people pay for - to see the bad guys get beat. — Sonny Liston

It don't matter as long as he can count up to 10 — Sonny Liston

When you will have made him a body without organs,
then you will have delivered him from all his automatic reactions and restored him to his true freedom. — Antonin Artaud

Wise to resolve, patient to perform. — Friedrich Schiller

The word had spread and people were piling around us. But then very suddenly, Sonny Liston froze me with that look of his. He said real quiet, 'Let's go on over here.' And he led the way to a table and the people hung back. I ain't going to lie. This was the only time since I have known Sonny Liston that he really scared me. — Muhammad Ali

Come over here and sit on my knee and finish your orange juice. — Sonny Liston

Anatomize the character of a successful hostess and the knife will lay bare the fact that she owes her position to one of three things: either she is liked, or she is feared, or she is important. — Elsa Maxwell

There's a great tradition at the BFI of giving fellowships and I thought one of the great jobs that I'd have at the BFI would be to give them out on a regular basis. — Anthony Minghella

I'm the king of the world, I am the greatest, I'm Muhammed Ali, I shook up the world, I am the greatest, I'm king of the world, I'm pretty, I'm pretty, I'm a baaaad man, you heard me I'm a baaad man, Archie Moore fell in four, Liston wanted me more, so since he's so great, I'm a make him fall in eight, I'm a baaad man, I'm king of the world! I'm 22 years old and ain't gotta mark on my face, I'm pretty, I easily survived six rounds with that ugly bear, because I am the greatest. — Muhammad Ali

If [the heavyweights] become champions they begin to have inner lives like Hemingway or Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy or Faulkner, Joyce or Melville or Conrad or Lawrence or Proust ... Dempsey was alone and Tunney could never explain himself and Sharkey could never believe himself nor Schmeling nor Braddock, and Carnera was sad and Baer an indecipherable clown; great heavyweights like Louis had the loneliness of the ages in their silence, and men like Marciano were mystified by a power which seemed to have been granted them. With the advent, however, of the great modern Black heavyweights, Patterson, Liston, then Clay and Frazier, perhaps the loneliness gave way to what it had been protecting itself against - a surrealistic situation unstable beyond belief. Being a Black heavyweight champion in the second half of the twentieth century (with Black revolutions opening all over the world) was now not unlike being Jack Johnson, Malcolm X and Frank Costello all in one ... — Joyce Carol Oates

My hero when I was 14 was Sonny Liston. No matter what kinds of problems you were having with your parents or at school, whatever, Sonny Liston would go and knock guys out, and that made it all right. — August Wilson

Sonny Liston is great. But he'll fall in eight. — Muhammad Ali

You know, jazz is the mother of all American music. R&B and pop and rap and everything are the branches on the main tree of the life of music, American music, which is jazz. — Eric Burdon

I'm the best ever. I'm the most brutal and vicious, the most ruthless champion there has ever been. No one can stop me. Lennox is a conqueror? No! I'm Alexander! He's no Alexander! I'm the best ever. There's never been anyone as ruthless as me. I'm Sonny Liston. I'm Jack Dempsey. There's no one like me. I'm from their cloth. There is no one who can match me. My style is impetuous, my defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious. I want his heart! I want to eat his children! Praise be to Allah! — Mike Tyson

Either you will make your life work, or your life will not work. — Nathaniel Branden

When I make a pretty good hook ( ... ) she gives me a toothless smile and an unintelligeble comment I think might be praise. — Suzanne Collins

The only thing my old man ever gave me was a beating. — Sonny Liston

Assume a virtue, if you have it not. That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat; Of habits devil, is angel yet in this. — William Shakespeare

I knew I had him in the first round. Almighty God was with me. I want everyone to bear witness, I am the greatest! I'm the greatest thing that ever lived. I don't have a mark on my face, and I upset Sonny Liston, and I just turned twenty-two years old. I must be the greatest. I showed the world. I talk to God everyday. I know the real God. I shook up the world, I'm the king of the world. You must listen to me. I am the greatest! I can't be beat! — Muhammad Ali

But in order to speak about all and to all, one has to speak of what all know and of the reality common to us all. The seas, rains, necessity, desire, the struggle against death
these are things that unite us all. We resemble one another in what we see together, in what we suffer together. Dreams change from individual, but the reality of the world is common to us all. Striving towards realism is therefore legitimate, for it is basically related to the artistic adventure. — Albert Camus

My punches are just as hard in Chicago as in New York. — Sonny Liston